Leveling up Tournament Sheik, what should I practice first?

[MegaFatcat100]

I've decided to pick up/possibly main Sheik for a local due to her being awesome as well as technical... well, almost too much tech to start with! So... what should I do? Focus on neural more and the basic stuff starting out, or heavily lab the perfect pivot c bounce wacky optimal stuff?

I'm super lost on where to begin, so any guidance would be great!

nobody? rip me i guess

 

[Big Red Thrilla]

You can master all the advanced techniques in her arsenal until your hands bleed but if they're not grounded in solid fundamentals you're still going to get 0-2 bodied. If Sheik can't pressure correctly with her grab game, fair/nair, and bouncing fish she's a free win. If Sheik can't control the stage with needles properly at mid-high percents she's a free win. If Sheik can't win neutral and press advantage deep off stage she's a free win. Focus on correctly utilizing her entire kit and infuriating your opponents with her superior pressure before you concern yourself with PP, Wave bounce, needle fidget etc etc

 

[ArikadoSD]

fast falling aerials and throw combos at all percents. knowing how to ledge trap, too

 

[WolfmanDeerek]

Picking up and maining a top tier just cus they are awesome sounds good in theory, but alot goes in to playing Sheik. Aside from seeing Sheik played at high calibur you should be asking yourself if and how you can learn to incorporate her better aspects in the time frame you're alotting for yourself.

Bouncing fish is an easy starting point. So is learning how to transition f tilt into up tilt into short hop fair to rack up early damage.

If you have a short window odds are you'll be learning her while you enter. That means you will have less understanding of specific matchups and how some characters played at high level beat your options. Crunch videos and learn how to kill. Sheik is light wait enough that foes with rage are dangerous. If you can't close the stock you're going to have a tough road ahead.

Getting kills with Sheik is tough for me. I tinker around with her, but her tier placement doesn't make me better with her than I am with Ganon. Make sure you aren't forcing a bad fit.

 

[Mini_Mac]

Right now, I am studying and training Sheik intensively to have her ready as a counterpick for tournament play as well as studying the MU in case I go against her at tournament.

One very critical thing that you must take into training mode when learning Sheik is movement practice. Sheik is a very fast character and almost all of her moves and combos that are effective in racking up damage require very fast hands on the controller.

Such moves you should start off with are Short-Hop Fast-Fall Aerials (more particularly her F-air) and make sure you practice follow ups as well like F-tilt strings after the SH FF F-air. Start off by practicing at a slower speed and then gradually work your way up.

This is something that ZeRo taught in his best ways to train video and he said that the most important thing to do is work on movement and have as much control over your character as possible. Sheik is one of the most advanced characters in the game for the reason that you need to have very precise control over her in order to have good results. This is also something I learned while training with Little Mac because a lot of his potential and damage racking combos come out of advanced techniques like perfect-pivots.

 

[EmpireCrusher203]

A movement drill I use is go to training mode, lvl 9 cpu, any character, and choose the most bizarre stage ever (I use scrolling stages), set the CPU to Run. Now chase after the CPU. Very simple, but very effective at getting used to running around, dodging obstacles, and using your surroundings.

Something all Sheiks should learn asap are her combos. Practice Fair to grab at 0%, and then fair planes (fair into fair into fair...), grab combos (mostly fthrow), Ftilt follow-ups, and Bouncing Fish Combos. Practice spacing her fair in training mode. Try to hit with the very tip on your fair (the hitbox goes slightly beyond the slash animation). You'll know you got the sweetspot if the damage meter says 5 instead of 4. For spacing purposes, use landing fairs out of a short hop, instead of a rising Fair, as landing fair has more range for some reason. Also, SUPER DUPER important, practice your kill confirms. Sheik has a lot of deadly 50/50s and very few kill options, so you MUST be consistent with your kill confirms. Learn all of them. Jab Cancelling is really good as it leads into Ftilt, Dtilt, or grab and jab is usually safe in neutral.

For techs, I think dash-to-shield is super important, since Sheik has some really strong out-of-shield options and dash-to-shield makes her very threatening. Needle techs are an absolute necessary. Focus on B-reversing (out of a dash and in the air) and Needle Fidgeting, as these two combined give you a lot of control over your movement. Rising Storm (buffered full hop needles) are important as they allow for certain sick combos (VoiD combos). Techs such as Ledge Nade and Instant Needle Cancelling aren't necessary, but are useful. Perfect Pivoting is super goddamn useful, trust me, allows for sick movement and extends combos. Perfect Pivoting is a must.

As for neutral, Sheik is really complicated and can be played in many different ways, but to oversimplify things: use needles to force approaches, use fair for spacing, and fish for grabs/fairs/ftilt. Sheik has a lot of tools in neutral, and you must learn how to use all of them. For practice needles, go to training mode, set a cpu to walk, and practice throwing needles as far as possible. Practice spacing your fairs. And practice out-of-shield options (ftilt, nair, bair, grab, jab,...). Watch players such as K9brusce (very basic), Mr. R (good fundamentals), and ZeRo (insane neutral game). Practice your combos and kill confirms.