My problems with the Sheik Changes

[Journal]

The changes were small in amount, but huge in magnitude. In 3.5, Sheik had a downthrow-backthrow DI mixup. If you DId either throw wrong, Sheik could follow up with an aerial or a regrab, depending on percent and how floaty or fast falling a character was. This is central to her game. It allowed her similar reward to NTSC downthrow, but it made it so both her and her opponent had to think. It's not easy to just get the opponent to DI wrong. You need to predict how they're going to DI, and make them think you'll throw a certain way but then throw the other way. You can do that through conditioning, mindgames, whatever, but the point was that it was an interesting mechanic that definitely nerfed her relative to NTSC Melee Sheik while at the same time allowing her to get similar benefit for thinking while you were playing.

Fast forward to 3.6. Her backthrow is back to melee, and her downthrow is slightly slower in execution but unchanged from PAL downthrow. Now that all of her throws, except for downthrow, are for positional advantage rather than following up, both you and your opponent always know which throw Sheik is going to use when you're not on the ledge. Sure, Sheik can still follow up if the other player DI's incorrectly, but now there's literally no reason that you should have incorrect DI, because you know what Sheik is going for 90% of the time. NTSC Sheik didn't have this problem, because even though it was the same option tree, at least her downthrow had benefit.

What this means is that unless you're on the ledge, there's basically no reason for Sheik to grab (since any opponent that knows the matchup will be able to react and DI correctly 90% of the time). This 100% changes the way that a character centered around starting something off grabs is fundamentally played. It would be like if Roy had his D-Tilt nerfed so that it didn't pop opponents up and start combos.

On a broader scale, I don't think balance nerfs should be changing the way that a character is played. If a 50/50 throw that requires reads, conditioning, and dumb luck to be successful is broken, make it require more precise DI, or give it more knockback growth so it doesn't work at higher percents, or something. They even could have done the changes they made with 3.6, but changed the downthrow to have a little more utility off of correct DI so her game would at least still be centered around getting grabs.

We're getting all of these mixed messages right now. We're hearing that "PM isn't Melee" and seeing Fox nerfed in a way that makes him fundamentally not Melee, but we're seeing the really fun, mental, and unique thing given to PM Sheik made more melee (without 75% of the NTSC benefit we're used to). I don't care about consistency of play style between Melee and PM. I just care about consistency of play style between PM versions, because that's the only way a well formulated meta for any character and counterplay for any character can be developed.

I have nothing but respect for the PMDT, but there's got to be a better way to nerf a grab character than to take away the reason to grab.

TLDR; Don't make a character centered around grab have a 75% useless grab game.

 

[Journal]

Another sucky thing about it is that everyone else is like "your nerf list is so small" but it's just super significant to her play style.

 

[KinGly]

Yeah, I said this on the reddit thread but the grab game was the most fun/Interesting part of the character. Really the main reason I played her. She loses a lot of flavor by not having it

 

[BlackMamba]

I'm so suprised more people aren't upset about her grabs now. Like... Now when I grab I'm like 'wait ... What was the point.' Even with horrible DI you can't get much more than a dash attack followup off of backthrow. So why would anyone not just DI for down throw all the time. I don't understand why they didn't just make her throws a bit slower. Now she went from having an excellent grab game to one of the worst in the game, as was previously mentioned.

 

[Getsafe]

I absolutely hated dealing with shiek so I laughed hard af when I saw the change list for her. It's a shame Marth didn't get the nerf bat as well

 

[foxygrandpa]

Sheik players were the only ones out of the melee tops who had to really put time into the character again to learn it in a new environment. New matchups are relevant, sure, falco, marth, peach, falcon, jiggs, and even fox are still easy to transition between. She got more nerfs than even fox. Even the pm designed characters weren't changed as drastically as sheik was. Changing her to this degree was totally inconsistent with the patch as a whole. Now all the time I've put into the her grab setups for the past couple of years is just totally null.

Wario still has his 50/50 off bite, and that has options off of it that are potentially better than sheik's were.
Ike has his 50/50 (kind of) off his fthrow and bthrow but still can combo off uthrow if needed.
Mario, Ness, Luigi, DK, falcon, wolf, fox, IC's, link, Tink, ganon,pika, squirtle, Samus, DDD, Snake, sonic, all have some sort of guaranteed follow up on top of other usable throws.

She lost a really staple kill option off of her grabs, which was already less guaranteed than NTSC sheik. I understand that her grabs are meant for positioning, but to take away such a staple thing like that takes a lot away from her core playstyle.

Despite that, I still think sheik is a good character. She still plays fundamentally similar but now she has no reliable kill setups off grabs at high percents. She's not as proficient as throwing for position and loses more matchups, but her fundamental style is still pretty similar. She's probably around the middle/upper echelon of the roster, but her grab game is kind of boring. She just doesn't feel fun to me anymore.

Meta knight has dthrow better than sheiks for tech chasing on top of a bigger recovery,strong punish game, long disjoint, insane dash dance, above average option coverage, free juggles, easier kill options, and a significant increase in his weight. I think I'm just going to play him instead.

 

[Keeseman]

They could still change this, right? Since it's just the beta release?

If not, Sheik isn't my PM main anyway, but I love Sheik in Melee and would hate to see her lose flair. She's one of the most interesting to watch as well in PM, imo.

 

[NYCal]

Losing the Bthrow just limits my options :/
Still going to semi-main Sheik. Can't give up hope.
#SheikandPeachforlife.

 

[Journal]

I'm probably still going to main Sheik, but at this point it's more because it will help me practice my melee Sheik, rather than having it be because it's more fun.

 

[foxygrandpa]

Honestly, if people thought the option coverage off of bthrow and dthrow was a problem, they should opt to make uthrow a mixup option in tandem with dthrow instead. Because it sends upwards, her tech chases wouldn't be as free and she would keep a mixup reminiscent of 3.5 but less effective. It would bring back the grab--> kill against floaties while not allowing for free followups all the time. I doubt anyone would miss her current uthrow and melee's bthrow is honestly useful edgeguarding.

 

[Juushichi]

Hi there.

Believe it or not, there are still reasons to grab and throw characters with Sheik in v3.6(beta). Down Throw is still a pretty strong throw for position and still allows for re-grabs because of how strong/long her boost grab is as well as dash attacks which are a pretty staple launcher. In addition, if characters are forced to tech --- because of the way that teching works in this game (it does not conserve your momentum into the tech roll), it is actually easier to tech chase characters across the board. A very easily observable victim of this is Bowser, who has some of the easiest techs to catch in the game.

If someone DI's incorrectly, you are still able to follow up with aerials such as fair or nair or etc, but the primary goal of Sheik (like in Melee) is to stretch the knockdown and choke out positioning from opposing characters. There are a myriad of ways to accomplish various things post the knockdown or off of poor DI choice. DSmash, Dair, DACUS, boost USmash, Ftilt, Dtilt, Utilt, Fsmash and the aforementioned dash attack are all moves that launch characters upwards or outwards into the rest of her aerial game.

As far as the reasoning behind the change of B-Throw/D-Throw, both of the throws had the exact same stats: 8 Damage, Angle of 62, 70 BKB and 55 KBG, however both of them had different release points. Down Throw released closer to her and further away and Back Throw released higher and farther away... but you could act sooner from it. What this meant is that for most characters, not only were you able to do all of the things that I mentioned in the previous paragraph (various launchers, tech chase, etc), but it also enabled those "Oops, I died." guess scenarios with DACUS/fair/nair that many opposing players were forced into.

While I would probably agree that Sheik has lost some of the fun quotient that the mixup had, I don't think the assertion that "there is no reason to throw" or that "there is no point in grabbing" is valid. If you feel like there is a more interesting character for you to play now, that's unfortunate, but I wish ya'll the best. I'll still be sticking it out with Sheik for the most part though and seeing what I can learn. I think that she is still a strong character in this version and I have fun playing her.

As far as other 50/50 guess scenarios go, even if they might not have been changed currently, we are looking into those and coming up with ways to address things like that. A lot of characters get changes between every version of the game. If we don't change something at a certain time, it generally means that we aren't confident in a solution or maybe it's not something that has been presented as a problem. We have to look at things in a broad light in development so sometimes things won't always work out immediately.

#pleaseunderstand

 

[lordhelmet]

PMDT can't make up their mind. Why does Marth get buffs while Sheik is nerfed?

I have always had problems with DI mixups, if your reaction time is just a LITTLE slow, you have a 50/50 chance of eating a stupidly hard punish. But I also disagree with Sheik getting nerfed for no reason. I think the backroom should give her bthrow back, but add a few frames of startup (maybe 16 from 14).

 

[AuraMaudeGone]

snip

I understand the reasoning behind the changes, and I'm not really upset per say just meh about it. Sheik's less interesting now. I like to believe most of want something that makes her more "PM like" as a whole. I rather just play Melee Sheik at this point.

 

[Juushichi]

Sure, I can understand that. I enjoy Sheik in PM because of the various system mechanics and new matchups, but people internalize different stuff I guess.

 

[Journal]

I guess it's fair to say I overreacted to how much less reason there is to grab, but it's definitely a grab game nerf that made her a lot less interesting. I'm sort of in the opposite boat that a lot of fox players are in- when I played PM sheik, I played her because she was a different, more fun version of a character I already loved from melee. Now that there's no significant differentiation in options, the character just isn't as appealing anymore.

And to clarify, I don't care about the nerf aspect so much. I'd play her if she was mid tier. It's more that an interesting, fun option that made her different from melee was taken away.

 

[4tlas]

The DI mixup into regrab was a cool mechanic. It added a great mindgame into Sheik's proficient grab game, and I always loved the hype moments when you got into someone's head (or saw some Sheik do it) for 4+ regrabs. If it was too strong, there were other ways to nerf it that didn't need it to be removed, and I don't think it was inherently problematic enough to require outright removal. The damage could have been nerfed, the base knockback increased so instead of regrab/techchase she got regrab/nothing, or the boost grab could have been removed (don't like this option either, but better than removing the DI mixup).

If they want to keep that DI mixup gone, then a DI mixup with fthrow to give her a forward launcher would be appropriate. That means fthrow needs to be faster.

 

[Thor]

What a travesty that you have to tech chase with one of the best tech-chasers in the game.

Unless I'm mistaken, she has PAL dthrow. She's still really really good in PAL. I think you can adapt.

Someone mentioned Wario's mixup earlier, but Wario has less range on everything and his command grab has I believe 3X the endlag of a normal grab and less range.

People mentioned Marth getting buffs, but he got none, and lost the floatiness on up+b. He also was less stupid to begin with, because his grabs do much less damage and only one of his throws converts to his juggle game [and it doesn't even do that on some people very effectively, like Link or Bowser as an example], while Sheik's dthrow will ALWAYS convert to her tech chase game or edgeguard game [or oops I died at the ledge] and bthrow is fantastic for edgeguarding setups.

Sheik's grab still puts her into a tech-chase setup or an edgeguard setup, and that's where she excels. The chaingrabs were unnecessary in the first place [again, my PAL comment], and they made Sheik's grab game broken [since it's chaingrabs on missed DI and tech chases on good DI, and you could just tech chase regrab the whole game anyway even on perfect DI]. The change makes Sheik work for it more, but it hardly makes her grab game anything less than very good.

 

[SazoonTheBoon]

While it agree sheiks grab game was pretty broken in 3.5, it didn't need to get nerfed this much. It's a shame to see sheik being the most neglected of the melee high tiers (aside from puff lol) having her two main tools (slap and grab game) being nerfed, it just is kinda sad; hope they don't keep her this way.

 

[KinGly]

What a travesty that you have to tech chase with one of the best tech-chasers in the game.

Unless I'm mistaken, she has PAL dthrow. She's still really really good in PAL. I think you can adapt.

Someone mentioned Wario's mixup earlier, but Wario has less range on everything and his command grab has I believe 3X the endlag of a normal grab and less range.

People mentioned Marth getting buffs, but he got none, and lost the floatiness on up+b. He also was less stupid to begin with, because his grabs do much less damage and only one of his throws converts to his juggle game [and it doesn't even do that on some people very effectively, like Link or Bowser as an example], while Sheik's dthrow will ALWAYS convert to her tech chase game or edgeguard game [or oops I died at the ledge] and bthrow is fantastic for edgeguarding setups.

Sheik's grab still puts her into a tech-chase setup or an edgeguard setup, and that's where she excels. The chaingrabs were unnecessary in the first place [again, my PAL comment], and they made Sheik's grab game broken [since it's chaingrabs on missed DI and tech chases on good DI, and you could just tech chase regrab the whole game anyway even on perfect DI]. The change makes Sheik work for it more, but it hardly makes her grab game anything less than very good.

From what I can tell, the general consensus among sheik players, or at least my own belief, is that the nerf to bthrow causes sheik to lose a lot of flavor. I don't care that she's worse, I care that I lost the most interesting thing about my main.

 

[Thor]

From what I can tell, the general consensus among sheik players, or at least my own belief, is that the nerf to bthrow causes sheik to lose a lot of flavor. I don't care that she's worse, I care that I lost the most interesting thing about my main.

The most interesting thing about your main was obscenely good in 3.5 [although mediocre in 3.02 due to edgeguarding being harder and a lot of projectiles being very strong]. They've mostly gone in with the toy bat once again [it's nerf... or nothing], and all the top tiers were in line to get hit, and they all did.

It may have been flavorful, but duplicating Fox from Melee was flavorful too [in a game where a lot of characters are different/buffed, Melee Fox is so good, we just port him with a few nerfs and bam! still top tier]. Ultimately they determined it was extremely difficult [impossible?] to balance Project M around Fox, so they're balancing Fox around Project M.

Perhaps that's a poor example, but I think the PMDT decided balance is more important than cool stuff [Mewtwo acting out of teleport and floating everywhere was freaking awesome, but it was also just plain silly in 3.02, as was Pikachu's QAC whenever and Link's ability to throw bombs off the top blastzone from on the ground...], so they removed it. Sheik's been more or less immune to nerfing until 3.6 because her pseudo-chaingrab made sense in the powerful environment that was 3.02. The DI mixup probably should have been removed alongside many of the other extremely strong tools in 3.5, but like Ike's super fast quickdraw and Roy's godlike dtilt, they were missed in the global nerfing. 3.6 is rectifying that now.

It may not be fun to lose your DI mixup, but it's also not fun to get chaingrabbed by Sheik, and while you can argue that others have DI mixups, those DI mixups are much harder to tech chase off of, and they don't lead to regrabs [Wario gets exactly one which leads to a tech chase, but he also doesn't have a lot of things Sheik has]. Sheik's tools are still likely to prove strong enough to be a contender as is, so leaving her with the ability to chaingrab, even if it is off a mixup, was likely viewed as simply too powerful [I know I think it is].

Perhaps my initially sarcastic tone was harsh, but Sheik still seems to pretty good. I just wish they'd make chain not suck, and then I'd personally think the 3.6 changelog would've been perfect.

 

[abordeu]

Registered only to post my thoughts on this. I think the problem here is not whether the character required nerfing, but the fact that by modifying Sheik in this way resulted in altering her playstyle in a drastic way. There must be hundreds of people that invested long hours in practicing mind games around her grab game, and with this modification all those people essentially wasted time on a strategy that is no longer a valid option. I think every other Sheik player here is saying the same; the real issue is not that the character is weaker, but that she is less fun to play.

To me it makes little sense that if the PM staff was aiming to make something different from Melee, to fall back to Melee stats. Personally, I feel like Sheik seems a little bit neglected when compared to a lot of the rest of the cast. Almost every other character that had useless or dysfunctional moves got proper redesigns. The previous backthrow configuration seemed like the right direction in making a more interesting/unique Sheik. Why not focus on the other things that required attention? I've never seen anyone make good use of the chain, and I think every Sheik main has been hoping for a proper redesign of this move.

And to address the problem of the character being too strong in 3.5; this could have been addressed without having to change her playstyle. There's already a bunch of suggestions in this thread that seem appropriate. I think it's not recommendable to attempt to level a character by changing the way you play that character. That can lead to frustration. How many people with countless hours of practice are being pushed aside? Especially since Sheik's grab game had remained unaltered for so long now; something that seemed to be status quo at this point.

In any case, I don't want to sound too harsh. I'm a huge fan of this project. I've been sticking around ever since we were deciding whether to play PM or Brawl+ at the office, so many years ago when the mods started popping up. Hopefully the PM teams finds a workaround that can make everyone happy, though I understand this can be hard to accomplish.

 

[4tlas]

I am a Sheilda main, and I cried bloody murder when Zelda's Dins Fire, crucial to her gameplay, was changed from 3.0 to 3.5 (along with many other iconic moves' basic properties, like Nayru's, Farore's, and Lightning Kicks). The complaint then was similar to the complaint we have for Sheik now: the playstyle has been drastically altered. However, at least the Zelda changes had some compensation (new Dins was cool in a different way, new Farore's was cool in a different way), and it could've been argued that old Dins was unfun for opponents. I don't think either of those apply here. Sheik's new (old?) bthrow is boring, Sheik's new dthrow is braindead for both players, and I never heard anyone complain about the throw mixup OR techchase ability. Believe me, I hear a lot of complaining about Sheik (and Zelda), and not once has anyone said the DI mixup was stupid.

If this particular option needed to be nerfed, it should have been done in a way that reduced the effectiveness of the moves without changing their use so drastically. Why not halve the damage of each throw, nerfing the chaingrab significantly while keeping her initial grab and DI mixup roughly the same? If the guaranteed techchase was the problem, then increase the base knockback so you had to boost grab for the regrab on bad DI and be unable to techchase on proper DI? If it was the risk/reward ratio of grabbing that was skewed, why not increase the risk (more lag on missed grab) rather than remove the reward? If the amount of threat Sheik applied by having a quick long-range grab with good followups was too much, why not remove the Boost Grab?

I don't care to know who they are, but I would like to know if there are any Sheik mains on the PMDT. It would probably make me feel like this was given proper thought, testing, and feedback. Also I'd be happy if Sheik at least got something interesting to replace the DI mixup. Melee bthrow is boring. How about giving her back the tether or remaking the chain?

 

[foxygrandpa]

I am a Sheilda main, and I cried bloody murder when Zelda's Dins Fire, crucial to her gameplay, was changed from 3.0 to 3.5 (along with many other iconic moves' basic properties, like Nayru's, Farore's, and Lightning Kicks). The complaint then was similar to the complaint we have for Sheik now: the playstyle has been drastically altered. However, at least the Zelda changes had some compensation (new Dins was cool in a different way, new Farore's was cool in a different way), and it could've been argued that old Dins was unfun for opponents. I don't think either of those apply here. Sheik's new (old?) bthrow is boring, Sheik's new dthrow is braindead for both players, and I never heard anyone complain about the throw mixup OR techchase ability. Believe me, I hear a lot of complaining about Sheik (and Zelda), and not once has anyone said the DI mixup was stupid.

If this particular option needed to be nerfed, it should have been done in a way that reduced the effectiveness of the moves without changing their use so drastically. Why not halve the damage of each throw, nerfing the chaingrab significantly while keeping her initial grab and DI mixup roughly the same? If the guaranteed techchase was the problem, then increase the base knockback so you had to boost grab for the regrab on bad DI and be unable to techchase on proper DI? If it was the risk/reward ratio of grabbing that was skewed, why not increase the risk (more lag on missed grab) rather than remove the reward? If the amount of threat Sheik applied by having a quick long-range grab with good followups was too much, why not remove the Boost Grab?

I don't care to know who they are, but I would like to know if there are any Sheik mains on the PMDT. It would probably make me feel like this was given proper thought, testing, and feedback. Also I'd be happy if Sheik at least got something interesting to replace the DI mixup. Melee bthrow is boring. How about giving her back the tether or remaking the chain?

There were so many things that could have been done to her grab game that would make it more interesting than it is now. Literally like 1/2 of the cast has some sort of throw made for techchasing in tandem with other usable grabs. Sheik has none, except if you're right next to the edge.
Her uthrow is totally useless as it is, except for occasional platform tech chases. That could be made into some sort of 50/50 with dthrow, and wouldn't be good for tech chasing since it throws upwards. I don't understand how anyone could like what they did. I understand that they nerfed the melee tops so that the game would be less of a melee clone, but sheik was fine in 3.5. They actually made her more similar to melee in this version.

On a side note, I don't even know how chain made it this far in development. That's just a poor design choice.

 

[KinGly]

I don't care to know who they are, but I would like to know if there are any Sheik mains on the PMDT. It would probably make me feel like this was given proper thought, testing, and feedback. Also I'd be happy if Sheik at least got something interesting to replace the DI mixup. Melee bthrow is boring. How about giving her back the tether or remaking the chain?

I don't believe there are any sheik players on the pmdt, but umbreon told me he's applying so there's hope

 

[Arcalyth]

Juushichi mains sheik

 

[4tlas]

Juushichi mains sheik

That should've been really obvious, I'm not sure how I missed that. Thanks.

Well if that's the case then I'm just going to have to assume that at least some critical thought and testing went into this change. I would still argue strongly in favor of reverting this and finding some other way to reduce her potential in whatever area is deemed problematic. There is definitely a way to change the effectiveness of her options to discourage but not eliminate certain methods of play.

 

[Idostuff]

I for one agree with the Sheik changes. Do i like them? No, but i understand where they are coming from and in the end are a good thing. What i do want to see is something the make the DI counterplay more complicated. As it stands right now, if sheik has you grabed, you just always hold down and away for d throw and that is the only relevant DI. What i propose is not matching back throw to down throw, but matching F-throw to the new back throw. Basically this means that if sheik has you grabbed at the ledge facing off stage, you have to make a guess.

 

[CyberZixx]

Is it just me or does fair have a higher default angle? Patch notes just said they added a graphical effect so it could be placebo.

 

[Missile]

I've been playing Sheik for a while now and I can't help but hate how they keep changing her for the worse. Why does she have to get her throws changed while there's characters like Ike, MK, Pit and Sonic with great grab followups AS WELL AS great bunchofotherstuff too.

Sheik in 3.5 was basically a grab-based character with two combo starters (dtilt and ftilt), a fast combo finisher + pressure tool (fair) and ranged edgeguard tools (needle+bair)

Now, she's basically an edgeguard machine with barely any neutral game in her, a horrible crouch cancel, her every move can be crouch canceled and she can no longer do anything about someone just holding down when she attacks, and shielding everything else.

I feel like Pit is an improved version of shiek, with an albeit worse projectile in most situations. But his grab game is definitely better, while having a better neutral, much better recovery and just as good tech chase game.

I honestly feel like Sheik is unviable in this version. 3.02 Sheik required a ridiculous amount of skill and precision to fight the cast, 3.5 Sheik required much less thanks to cast-wide recovery nerfs that were very much needed, but she still took a lot of skill to play correctly, while letting aggressive players play her aggressively, and more campy players play campy.

Now she feels like the only way to play her is by camping your opponent out as much as you can to raise their percent and try and finish them off with a tilt->fair or uair. This is worse than Melee NTSC and PAL Sheik. She feels like the worse version of either edition of Melee, with nerfed needles, crappy throws and a cast that can crouch cancel everything she does, and can custom combo her all day.

I think the problem with her throws was that it was very hard to react to either of them. I think that they should've tried just adding back some (x0.5) or all (x1) hitstun to her throws to make them easier to react to, just to try that out in this version. I don't see why the character has to be revamped in a beta.

I think 3.5 Sheik was perfect and should not be changed from what she is in that version. If she IS going to be changed, please do something about up-b's lag, side-b's uselessness and perhaps make uthrow a more viable throw by making it faster so that all of her throws are useful.

 

[Deleted member]

my proposed changes to sheik are keeping 3.5 throws and adding growth to dthrow/bthrow, raising the release point on backthrow, removing upsmash tip KO, and removing transform.

 

[4tlas]

my proposed changes to sheik are keeping 3.5 throws and adding growth to dthrow/bthrow, raising the release point on backthrow, removing upsmash tip KO, and removing transform.

If you increase growth of the throws she won't be able to land killing tipper upsmashes, so why also outright remove that ability? I've never heard anyone complain about tipper upsmash by itself.

What exactly will raising the release point on bthrow do?

I don't see any reason to remove Transform. You would be literally removing a character from the game. If it was to be done it should have been done from the start, just as if Sheilda were the intended playstyle both characters needed to be intertwined more from the start. At this point you have Zelda, Sheik, and Sheilda mains, and removing one of those groups' character is not ok. If you are worried about abuse cases that are unfun to play against, figure out which ones those are and change the move to remove those without removing the character outright. And there's no way PMDT would touch Transform before Chain.

 

[AuraMaudeGone]

my proposed changes to sheik are keeping 3.5 throws and adding growth to dthrow/bthrow, raising the release point on backthrow, removing upsmash tip KO, and removing transform.

-Moaning & groaning-

 

[Cheeri-Oats]

Rumor has it that the back-throw was removed because there was an infinite that was discovered in testing, so they modified it pre-emptively.

 

[Missile]

@Umbreon 's suggested changes are what I consider to be a good starting point to work on Sheik.

Right now, she's just bad. She feels like 3.02 Sheik in comparison to the rest of the cast.

E: I don't agree with removing tipper u-smash, given it's a, mostly, situational kill move. But I think going back to 3.5 throws and experimenting with KBG instead of completely changing her throw dynamics after having put so much time into them is a much better idea.

 

[Arcalyth]

There's literally no reason to get rid of tipper usmash.

She needs her Melee needles. I remember in the past this was some sort of technical impossibility, but I don't really believe that now. There's a way to make them at least comparable, is there not? Maybe not so obscene, but needles get clanked by pretty much everything with disjoint. (If they can make Snake's tranq intangible, needles can certainly use a similar but not as extreme buff)

Chain should be tweaked for usability because it's a decent counter to crouch-cancel, Sheik's biggest weakness in this game (mitigated by grab, which is beat by sidestep, and getting some percent for trying to CC>sidestep isn't unfair at all in a game that is supposedly supposed to reward aggression). Give it slightly less startup, or better yet slightly less endlag? I think both might be too much but it would definitely make AtG chain a viable mixup to AC needles and fair that can actually cover CC, because good luck doing tomahawk>grab and not getting dsmashed. (Yes you can boost grab on the ground but that's on the ground and with a different spacing. I'm trying to illustrate how to make a currently useless move into a situational move)

Give her <3.6 throws back and increase the hitlag multiplier on dthrow to something between 0.5x and 1.0x. Increase KBG (or maybe release point, I'm not completely sure on the nuances of how that works) on bthrow only, but not dthrow. This will tone down her throw mixup so that players don't get frustrated by a lack of apparent counterplay (bthrow loops for days) while still allowing her a deep and nuanced punish game. Right now her punishes are hardly deep or nuanced. The formula is camp needles until dthrow will tumble, tech chase all day until you can land a bthrow or tilt/fair edgeguard into needles, needles, needles, edgehog. Every stock.

Please tell me why I shouldn't play any other tech chase character that has all of the same tools and more, like Pit, Diddy, ZSS, Mario?

For the record I am also pro-transform even though I can see the merits of removing it, I think the merits of not removing it are about equal and since we already have it and have had it since the beginning, it'd be pretty upsetting to see it go. Or you can just redesign Sheik/Zelda for the 3rd time. JFC. Stop doing that or you won't have any players left.

 

[tasteless gentleman]

Shiek could literally chain grab bowser from 0 to death from 1 grab, we already have ice climbers that can do that... and im sure other other big characters were stuck like that too. Good riddens.

P.S. you had two changes, be grateful you dont main bowser

 

[Arcalyth]

Yeah lol. That was like a 100:0 matchup for Bowser. But increasing kbg on bthrow makes DI away more effective if she choses to mixup. Make sheik take more skill by making the mixup require a read AND a tech chase but only if the opponent doesn't execute the correct counterplay.

 

[AuraMaudeGone]

Chain should be tweaked for usability because it's a decent counter to crouch-cancel, Sheik's biggest weakness in this game (mitigated by grab, which is beat by sidestep, and getting some percent for trying to CC>sidestep isn't unfair at all in a game that is supposedly supposed to reward aggression).

Good movement and defense options is king in this game. One blatantly OP idea I have to Chain is to make it an improved version of Link's grab+tether ability.

Right now her punishes are hardly deep or nuanced. The formula is camp needles until dthrow will tumble, tech chase all day until you can land a bthrow or tilt/fair edgeguard into needles, needles, needles, edgehog. Every stock.

Please tell me why I shouldn't play any other tech chase character that has all of the same tools and more, like Pit, Diddy, ZSS, Mario?

Because ninja are cool? I dunno, she needs to be shifted fundamentally because this Punish only game plan is becoming a chore.

 

[Journal]

Shiek could literally chain grab bowser from 0 to death from 1 grab, we already have ice climbers that can do that... and im sure other other big characters were stuck like that too. Good riddens.

P.S. you had two changes, be grateful you dont main bowser

The fact that it was just two changes doesn't change the impactfulness of the changes. Sheik's entire neutral and punish strategy was changed. Length of the change log really isn't that important.

If falco's lasers were changed to wolf lasers, that would "only be one change."

 

[Missile]

So because she had 1 matchup that she could 0 to death her grabs warranted a nerf that affects her whole matchup spread across the cast? That's not how balancing a character works.

And yeah, thank the PMDT we only got two changes to Sheik. That doesn't fundamentally change the way she plays at all, I mean, it's just two changes right?