Kirby completely destroys Sheik

[Lore]

yeah, I think Zelda is a bit better against Kirby if you can actually use her...

I'm tired of people saying this is such an easy matchup or that Kirby's a bad character. Wrong on both counts.

This matchup seems around 60-40 in Kirby's favor to me.

 

[SinkingHigher]

I concur this matchup can be really hard if it's a good Kirby, but like all characters he (if you hear me say she, I mean Kirby. I always thought of him as a girl) has his weaknesses. imo we should be discussing those instead of *****ing.

From my experience (note, not the best Kirbys), Kirby has trouble when you:

1. Attack from beneath.

Sweetspot u-airs can kill him quite easily if you can get close enough. You have to time it well. I guess you could bait with an faux needle charge. Watch for down B and d-airs, though. Kirby needs to be around 150% though so prepare to do a lot of damage racking.

2. Edge-guarding with the chain.

If you manage to get her below the stage, or far enough away so you can predict a recovery, you can trap her with a chain lock. f-tilt locks are kinda worthless in this match up, but chainlocks work just the same.

Her dodge seems to be made for F-smash, so forget that, but otherwise aerial-cancelling > D-smash, Grab, U-tilt, d-tilt (works really well) etc... is all good.

A lot of her moves (hammer swing) leave her open from behind, and if you're close enough you can roll behind her and attack before cool-down lag is over.

Basically, like Metaknight (and everyone else) it's all about spacing and timing. Try not to stay right in front of Kirby for too long. Get underneath whenever possible. Use needles and chain. Edgeguard.

 

[<π]

bump.

yeah so I got to play a few competent kirby mains at a tourney last weekend this match up is no where near unbeatable. kirby has horrible projectiles and horrible lateral speed espeacially in the air. so yeah needle camp.

Unfortunately you can't really approach kirbs at all, bair or grab out of shield will always get you. always. so you have to go for guaranteed shield pokes since you are keeping pressure on his shield with needles that shouldn't be too hard to come by.
You can tilt Kirby out of a lot of his approaches and definitely dash attack him when he is coming in with spaced fairs so know that.
Chain is stupid good if you didn't pick fd
Kirbies aerials all come out slow in exchange for that high priorety so you can follow up connected attacks without too much fear.

Kirbies main kills are:
bair(which you shouldn't let yourself ever get hit by really since it only works well on the defensive. You set can only set yourself up to be hit by this attack)
and his very slow smashes. as a sheik you should be throwing out moves that have huge lag so most of these can be avoided. Don't dsmash wildly or go for upB kills. Even on shield connect you can set yourself up for a fsmash which can kill at pretty low percents

chain is awesome if you didn't pick fd... battlefield people! come on!

in fact platforms in general help a lot in this match up and stop kirby from coming from on high with unbeatable dairs, and mind game swallows and crap.

kirbies horrible lateral speed makes changing to Zelda very safe if you can know him away so do that crap. zelda can kill him a low percents 100 is kill range on just about every stage in every position with any of her smashes.

I still like sheik way more than zelda for this match up only because zelda has no pressure game, no approach game, and a very very weak defensive game in ths match up where sheik has an awesome pressure and decent defensive options.

Sheik will rack way more damage safely, none of Zelda's moves have the potential to link together in this match up so getting up to killing percent is so so hard. and you have to get them even higher to kill since 9 times out of ten you are using your kill moves to rack damage.

this match is very even IMO if you aren't blindly running into kirbies wall. Use your tools play safe.

 

[-Mars-]

How does Zelda not have a defensive game when her usmash beats anything Kirby can do?

 

[<π]

Zelda has a defensive game but it is very very weak.
No experienced kirby is just going to freely jump into an upsmash. You can mind game into it but when a kirby is throw out attacks you are much more likely to get a spaced ftilt than a full hop down air. A missed usmash is almost always going to catch a fowrad smash because it is so laggy.
Even out of shield zelda can't hit a kirby who is spacing fairs and bairs with upsmash or even fsmash unless they mess up. For sheik there are much more options when you are on the defensive.

 

[-Mars-]

Zelda has a defensive game but it is very very weak.
No experienced kirby is just going to freely jump into an upsmash. You can mind game into it but when a kirby is throw out attacks you are much more likely to get a spaced ftilt than a full hop down air. A missed usmash is almost always going to catch a fowrad smash because it is so laggy.
Even out of shield zelda can't hit a kirby who is spacing fairs and bairs with upsmash or even fsmash unless they mess up. For sheik there are much more options when you are on the defensive.

Ya your completely right, I suppose that's the reason why the Kirby players have the matchup as 60-40 Zelda.

No experienced Zelda player is going to be throwin out random usmashes. If a Kirby player is trying to space ftilts, i'm just going to laugh at them and hit them with an ftilt or an fsmash.

 

[<π]

yeah thats the thing zelda just plays a waiting game where she hopes her opponent can't get through he fsmash and tilts
her aerial is a joke for an approach, din's is an annoyance. so she ends up waiting for people to try and approach her. with bowser thats cool he has upB and tilt and jab oos, zelda's jab is as slow as bowsers ftilt, lol.

I don't know how to play zelda at all she is my sheiks biggest weakness right now. I need to talk to ryoko or someone about her. BUT yeah basically if you are fooled into fsmashing verus kirby you'll get a dash grab which has rediculous range and speed btw. and then you'll be in the air and you'll have to work to get down only to be presured hard at close range where you no longer have control. At least that how it looks to me.

 

[-Mars-]

yeah thats the thing zelda just plays a waiting game where she hopes her opponent can't get through he fsmash and tilts
her aerial is a joke for an approach, din's is an annoyance. so she ends up waiting for people to try and approach her. with bowser thats cool he has upB and tilt and jab oos, zelda's jab is as slow as bowsers ftilt, lol.

I don't know how to play zelda at all she is my sheiks biggest weakness right now. I need to talk to ryoko or someone about her. BUT yeah basically if you are fooled into fsmashing verus kirby you'll get a dash grab which has rediculous range and speed btw. and then you'll be in the air and you'll have to work to get down only to be presured hard at close range where you no longer have control. At least that how it looks to me.

Well then don't talk about what you don't know. Let me inform you as to why Zelda has an advantage on Kirby.

Range advantage- fsmash and ftilt outrange anything Kirby has in his arsenal besides his fsmash which has considerable startup time. He can't space well on the ground, even dtilt clanks with his fsmash and will even clank or beat any other ground move he has. I don't see how Zelda doesn't have an advantage at close range.

Priority advantage- Kirby is usually able to flat out beat characters from the air in most cases...not the case with Zelda. Usmash beats anything Kirby has, you may say that Kirby can just bait Zelda but then we're not looking at the matchup......we're looking at mindgames and those do not figure into a matchup.

Approaching- So what does Kirby do? He has nothing on Zelda from the ground or through the air. You said something about the dash grab, but i'll just abuse jab and fsmash's extremely low cooldown time to prevent that. There's a reason why Zelda is one of the harder characters to grab.

The only reason that this is 60-40 Zelda and not worse is the fact that Kirby abuses her offstage. In all other areas, though, she beats Kirby and Kirby mains will agree.

 

[<π]

YOu just agreed wuth me the post before. zelda is too slow to have anything on kirby yes she has priority on kirby but so does gannondorf. zeldas lack of fast poking moves makes playing her defensively agianst characters like kirby exceptionaly difficult because of there big attack and grab ranges zelda is very limited by what she can do. Ultimately you come to decision where you have to guess what come next

Kirby short hopped. if I upsmash and he back airs me I'll beat it, if he doesn't back air I'm left open. If I don't upsmash and he bair airs I'm hit. situations like that will present themselves where it isn't about being the better player but about making the correct guess.

That said I'd love to see some competent zeldas take on skilled kirbies when they are both experienced in the match up. I love being proven wrong.

 

[Blistering Speed]

Kirby short hopped. if I upsmash and he back airs me I'll beat it, if he doesn't back air I'm left open. If I don't upsmash and he bair airs I'm hit. situations like that will present themselves where it isn't about being the better player but about making the correct guess.

I don't....understand. What kind of point is that? For one, mindgames don't factor in a matchup and two, replace Zelda with virtually every character and you can apply that paragraph to them. Im sorry, you just described a basic game mechanic in some effort to prove a point.

 

[-Mars-]

YOu just agreed wuth me the post before. zelda is too slow to have anything on kirby yes she has priority on kirby but so does gannondorf. zeldas lack of fast poking moves makes playing her defensively agianst characters like kirby exceptionaly difficult because of there big attack and grab ranges zelda is very limited by what she can do.

Lol, sorry I forgot some people have a hard time comprehending sarcasm over the internet.....that's my bad for the misunderstanding.

I said ya I agree with you sarcastically because Kirby players have this as advantage Zelda.

I already explained to you that jab, fsmash, and dtilt all have really low cooldown periods. You can throw out these high priority attacks that beat everything Kirby has and he can't do a whole lot about it.

 

[Falconv1.0]

Kirby vs Sheik is in Kirby's favor, so just play Zelda. His only saving grace is that if she's trying to recover Kirby gets to manhandle her. Otherwise it's just annoying as hell.


Kirby isn't top tier potential because he's not as safe as the top tiers. However, he's high tier because he beats his good match ups better than his top tier buds do for a lot of matches. He can be mained effectively but he probably works best as a cp.

 

[<π]

>: (

 

[popsofctown]

Hey <3, good to see you at the Sheik boards. Do you live in winterpark or bloomfield? I should be moving near winterpark come fall.

If you are having trouble playing Zelda well, I recommend watching the good Zeldas. A good Zelda is a rare thing, I would say DM or Ryoko is almost you're only options... and Ryoko is like a ghost that's rarely caught on film afaik.. tough stuff isn't it?

If you post vids of your Zelda I'm willing to help to the extent of my knowledge. I know something about Zelda by now, something.

Kirby beats Zelda. Just not at first. Really Zelda is kind of like Snake, at first everyone think's they can't get past the huge hitboxes, but then they figure out how to beat a character that simply isn't versatile and mobile.

I don't see how Zelda upsmash beats Kirby back air. He can SDI out in time to punish you, that's not what i consider beating a move. (teehee. Chomp the turtle "beats" my toon link's back air spam...)

 

[<π]

i just played ryoko's Zelda this morning I'm

I learned a lot playing against him as usual, despite huge lag on my end.

 

[Villi]

Snake . . . isn't versatile and mobile.

*dies*

 

[demodemo]

except of course, snake is top tier. lawl

 

[popsofctown]

yes, they share that weakness, Snake is just top tier because he has other advantages that are very, very powerful.

Both Zelda and snake are slow and vulnerable in the air. Zelda is also slow on the ground. After a while, you can learn to punish both characters' lack of mobility.

It's just, even after you learn to punish Snake's lack of mobility, you still lose because his everything else is so awesome.

Not every top tier character has a perfect stat sheet Villi

 

[choknater]

OK foolz, listen up. Hm, I did main Kirby for a little bit and I was able to figure out this matchup. Here's some good tips for learning matchups!

- Never have finalized preconceptions of a matchup. Keep an open mind.
- Use Sheik against the lvl 9 CPU for several matches (allowing the AI to adapt to your Sheik as well)
- Learn how to use the character you're trying to beat

So it took me a little while but I figured out the Kirby matchup. I'd agree that Kirby has an advantage, but since my Zelda is very poor, I have to stick with Sheik in order to win this one. It's totally possible too. Here's some notes:

MOST IMPORTANT THING: WATCH THE KICKS!!!
- Kirby has good spacing tools in his kicking attacks. Fair, Bair, ftilt, dtilt, all his smashes (esp. fsmash). Watch what Kirby does with his feet. The trick to this is knowing that Kirby throws out the attacks quickly, but he cannot do them in rapid succession. Space this by rolling around and searching for ftilt openings, or throwing needles.

- If you play Kirby, you should know how Kirby's recovery works. He has to maneuver in the air while mixing up his DI, jumps, and aerial hammers. Charge needles while he's recovering, but don't waste them while Kirby's recovering unless you know all your needles will connect. Sheik having charged needles alone will force Kirby to pick a good angle. From there, you chain hog, and depending on the angle, you wanna react to Kirby's recovery.

* If Kirby is low, either ledge drop with your chain hog invincibility and bair, or wait until he uses up-B and use your chain hog invincibility to ledge hop aerial (nair or uair.)
* If Kirby is high, stay on the stage and get under him and react to how he comes down. Like many other characters, Kirby doesn't really have a lot of good options to come down when someone is underneath. Watch air dodges.
* If Kirby is fairly level to the stage, jump up and throw your needles if they'll hit. Otherwise you can jump out backwards and bair, or just wait on the stage.

I went into all that detail because edgeguarding Kirby is very important, and also difficult. However, it's possible.

- Kirby's a floaty, so if you ftilt, immediately nair, fair, utilt, or uair. No point in locking. If he is knocked too high, once again get under him and punish whatever he does.

- If he absorbs you, immediately dair. However, don't immediately dair if there is a chance of him spitting you off the stage .

- Kirby sometimes like to throw out a random up-B. Watch these closely because Sheik is one of the few characters who is fast enough to power shield it and punish with dash attack/needles/dacus.

- Kirby's jab is good so make sure you either don't get jabbed, or you jab before him, or ftilt.

- Kirby's roll is really good but if he rolls behind you just watch it and punish with dsmash or ftilt.

- It's hard to grab him so don't really bother with it unless you are pressuring and you KNOW that he will shield (if you are good at aggressive play, sometimes you just know and you can read the shield even before it happens )

- Keep needles charged. Kirby doesn't have fast horizontal approaches, and Sheik does. Kinda like playing against Wario or G&W, it's really essential to charge needles at any opportunity. Against MK and stuff, it's too hard to charge needles under pressure, but you can definitely do it against these slower chars.

- Watch Kirby's low % fthrow combos. Don't get grabbed early on, so use lots of bairs or dsmashes for spacing. Either that or just pressure well

- The 2nd hit of the aerial hammer is DEVASTATING. You will die. Always remember that kind of spacing, just like you always have to remember spacing Snake's tilts. It's hard to predict the movement of the aerial hammer, so just remember if Kirby is kinda diagonally above you, he's in hammer range. It's one of his best punish KO moves too so just be aware of the hammer. A good Kirby player will save that move since it's a very unexpected KO move as opposed to his fsmash or usmash.

- The main way to KO him is either read an air dodge to usmash him, or just edge guarding him. It's a hassle to edge guard him but once you get a hang of it, it's not that bad. Easier than MK at least .

- If he absorbs needles, he gets a little better since he gets a good projectile that will eat your approaches. Needle him back, or if you're crazy like me just rush him down and knock off his needles ASAP.

- Your main spacing tools against Kirby: jab, utilt (above), bair (if he's jumping using his own bairs/fairs), needles (long range), ftilt (close range for pressure)

- No need to ftilt repeatedly in this matchup. Remember that, because consecutive ftilts are more likely to be punished.

MINDSET: Kirby is one of the strongest "Basic" characters in this game. He doesn't have anything completely superior to other characters... he just has a lot of really good features. He can do everything well, but nothing spectacular. The only heavy punishment Kirby can deal is the low % fthrow combos. Other than that, the Kirby player is required to just play smart, read opponents well, and deal as much damage as he can until he can use a KO move. Kirby is pretty much the most basic character in Brawl, so it's a matter of knowing and mastering the basics of the game in order to beat him. Just know what he can do, and you will have no problem outplaying the Kirby as long as you are the better player. Kirby might have a slight advantage at first glance, but IMO good matchup knowledge, creativity, and using SHEIK'S SPEED can make the matchup pretty much even.

 

[rinoH]

OK foolz, listen up. Hm, I did main Kirby for a little bit and I was able to figure out this matchup. Here's some good tips for learning matchups!

- Never have finalized preconceptions of a matchup. Keep an open mind.
- Use Sheik against the lvl 9 CPU for several matches (allowing the AI to adapt to your Sheik as well)
- Learn how to use the character you're trying to beat

So it took me a little while but I figured out the Kirby matchup. I'd agree that Kirby has an advantage, but since my Zelda is very poor, I have to stick with Sheik in order to win this one. It's totally possible too. Here's some notes:

MOST IMPORTANT THING: WATCH THE KICKS!!!
- Kirby has good spacing tools in his kicking attacks. Fair, Bair, ftilt, dtilt, all his smashes (esp. fsmash). Watch what Kirby does with his feet. The trick to this is knowing that Kirby throws out the attacks quickly, but he cannot do them in rapid succession. Space this by rolling around and searching for ftilt openings, or throwing needles.

- If you play Kirby, you should know how Kirby's recovery works. He has to maneuver in the air while mixing up his DI, jumps, and aerial hammers. Charge needles while he's recovering, but don't waste them while Kirby's recovering unless you know all your needles will connect. Sheik having charged needles alone will force Kirby to pick a good angle. From there, you chain hog, and depending on the angle, you wanna react to Kirby's recovery.

* If Kirby is low, either ledge drop with your chain hog invincibility and bair, or wait until he uses up-B and use your chain hog invincibility to ledge hop aerial (nair or uair.)
* If Kirby is high, stay on the stage and get under him and react to how he comes down. Like many other characters, Kirby doesn't really have a lot of good options to come down when someone is underneath. Watch air dodges.
* If Kirby is fairly level to the stage, jump up and throw your needles if they'll hit. Otherwise you can jump out backwards and bair, or just wait on the stage.

I went into all that detail because edgeguarding Kirby is very important, and also difficult. However, it's possible.

- Kirby's a floaty, so if you ftilt, immediately nair, fair, utilt, or uair. No point in locking. If he is knocked too high, once again get under him and punish whatever he does.

- If he absorbs you, immediately dair. However, don't immediately dair if there is a chance of him spitting you off the stage .

- Kirby sometimes like to throw out a random up-B. Watch these closely because Sheik is one of the few characters who is fast enough to power shield it and punish with dash attack/needles/dacus.

- Kirby's jab is good so make sure you either don't get jabbed, or you jab before him, or ftilt.

- Kirby's roll is really good but if he rolls behind you just watch it and punish with dsmash or ftilt.

- It's hard to grab him so don't really bother with it unless you are pressuring and you KNOW that he will shield (if you are good at aggressive play, sometimes you just know and you can read the shield even before it happens )

- Keep needles charged. Kirby doesn't have fast horizontal approaches, and Sheik does. Kinda like playing against Wario or G&W, it's really essential to charge needles at any opportunity. Against MK and stuff, it's too hard to charge needles under pressure, but you can definitely do it against these slower chars.

- Watch Kirby's low % fthrow combos. Don't get grabbed early on, so use lots of bairs or dsmashes for spacing. Either that or just pressure well

- The 2nd hit of the aerial hammer is DEVASTATING. You will die. Always remember that kind of spacing, just like you always have to remember spacing Snake's tilts. It's hard to predict the movement of the aerial hammer, so just remember if Kirby is kinda diagonally above you, he's in hammer range. It's one of his best punish KO moves too so just be aware of the hammer. A good Kirby player will save that move since it's a very unexpected KO move as opposed to his fsmash or usmash.

- The main way to KO him is either read an air dodge to usmash him, or just edge guarding him. It's a hassle to edge guard him but once you get a hang of it, it's not that bad. Easier than MK at least .

- If he absorbs needles, he gets a little better since he gets a good projectile that will eat your approaches. Needle him back, or if you're crazy like me just rush him down and knock off his needles ASAP.

- Your main spacing tools against Kirby: jab, utilt (above), bair (if he's jumping using his own bairs/fairs), needles (long range), ftilt (close range for pressure)

- No need to ftilt repeatedly in this matchup. Remember that, because consecutive ftilts are more likely to be punished.

MINDSET: Kirby is one of the strongest "Basic" characters in this game. He doesn't have anything completely superior to other characters... he just has a lot of really good features. He can do everything well, but nothing spectacular. The only heavy punishment Kirby can deal is the low % fthrow combos. Other than that, the Kirby player is required to just play smart, read opponents well, and deal as much damage as he can until he can use a KO move. Kirby is pretty much the most basic character in Brawl, so it's a matter of knowing and mastering the basics of the game in order to beat him. Just know what he can do, and you will have no problem outplaying the Kirby as long as you are the better player. Kirby might have a slight advantage at first glance, but IMO good matchup knowledge, creativity, and using SHEIK'S SPEED can make the matchup pretty much even.

wow longest thread ever choknater

 

[choknater]

Haha Yayuhzzz! Sometimes I like to help!

 

[TechnoMonster]

Kirby can approach Sheik with Dash Attack relatively safely, because who cares if you grab me, and if you do anything but shield and grab I'm either safe or guaranteed the launcher hit, and it eats good shield. Sheik has to really go to work on Kirby to get the damage she needs to kill, but Kirby generally gets free grabs on Sheik all day for 10%+ apiece.

Whenever you're off the stage I can just grab the edge and pretty much get a free grab, hammer or f/u-smash depending on timing and whatnot.

 

[choknater]

Kirby does not get free grabs on Sheik all day =\

Also it's the main point of charging needles to prevent ground approaches.