Needle help

[WeaselKing]

So I'm kind of a scrub and I feel like I'm not using needles to their maximum potential. I usually just use them to stop people from dashdancing and sometimes when I'm recovering I'll throw out needles to try to stop people from edgeguarding me. I don't really know how to cancel the lag from needles cause if I'm being honest I never really saw a use for it. Is it a worthwhile tactic to learn? When are some good times to use needles? Thanks for the help in advance.

 

[Rice03]

I don' t know if you already know this but you can use L or R to cancel the charge and save the needles for later. Yes needles can stop dash dances, but they have more use than just that. For start you can use the needles to edgeguard Fox and Falcos Firefox or Firebird if you jump and release needles on them. You can edgeguard others with needles to, but the space animals are easy to edgeguard with Sheik with some practice. Second, Sheik can use needles to get grabs. By jumping and throwing fully charged needles to the opponent. As Sheik falls, and the opponent is still in hit stun. You can get a free grab into down throw. But keep in mind that Sheik is a ground character that depends on grabs. If this doesn't help then watch Sheik videos of m2k or plup and see what they do with needles.

 

[Scroll]

Needles have a ton of uses.
For example they can act as a great mixup to your preempty AC Fairs.
Doing needles in the air will dont put you in any lag when you land and so you can use that to create a wall.
Like Rice03 said, if you hit the opponent either with a full set of needles coming down from the air, or a really late timed one, can get you a grab off of it.
What I see less people do is to do something else than a grab.
At higher percents a Dsmash or Jab -> Dsmash is super powerful. Both of their hitboxes comes out faster than grab so the timing isn't as strict too.
I personally dont enjoy doing standing needles. I'd rather handle any situation, where a standing needle can be used, differently.
Take the space and pressure him with AC Bairs or Fairs. Putting yourself in the corner and shooting needles is boring AF imo. I'd rather spend my time on something else then. Go for it in tournament though. Frustrating the opponent is good right?

 

[AscendantAquila]

Throwing needles in the air creates this wall that if you run into it can lead get you grabbed. They are really powerful because they auto-cancel when you land and have a surprisingly sized hitbox. You can watch players like Shroomed too and see how he uses needles and you'll see why needles are so powerful if you know when and how to use them.

I personally don't think standing needles across the stage is good because then a spacie just laser camps you and builds up a ton of percent. I agree with Trip too and that Sheik players (specifically lower level) need to stop grabbing less. I think they get hung up on Sheik's strong grab game and only look for that when Sheik has great normals and can wall out many characters in the game. The one thing I notice too is that they give up too much space because they are looking for grabs and many corner themselves.

 

[twopercent]

I like using needles to force my opponent to mix up their approach. Get good at doing air/platform needles, you should be able to gauge the angle of air needles really well (especially when edge-guarding).