False
Smash Lord
NINJA 101
Welcome to class boys.
Sheik has always been a very solid character throughout the Smash series. Her combo and gimping potential in Melee was one of the best, and she had an unrivaled tech chase game. I believe Sheik was extremely under represented in Brawl, as the only prominent Sheiks (Judo + Cross) could do so much in a Metaknight/ICs infested meta-game. She had the necessary kit to do well (much similar to Sm4sh) but she lacked killpower in a game where people lived forever. Additionally, edge guarding (as in deep edge guarding, going off stage) was not really a thing in Brawl, and I believe that's where Sheik shines.
Sheik's returns in Smash 4, but this time, she's actually a threat. The addition of Bouncing Fish has MASSIVELY buffed her ability to cover options, extend combos, get kills, and recover. ALL OF THESE have been problems for her in the past; not anymore.
By inherent design Sheik is an amazing character. All of her aerials come out quick, and have little-to-none cooldown on landing. Her grabs combo into her aerials, or they set up for 50-50 reads, which rarely ANY OTHER CHARACTER'S GRABS do. Immediately, we're in the advantage. Not to mention, we have a GROUND GAME, that sets up for our AIR GAME? Forward tilt and down tilt are so good as a means of shield pressure. It's an excellent boxing game tool as well. Not to mention we have a fairly good jab. (If only jabs true combo'd into stuff like in Melee)
Given her face value, Sheik is a strong character indeed. But what exactly pushes her to the top? I'll say it now guys:
Her mix-ups.
TOMAHAWKING
Sheik's dash speed + fast fall speed is phenomenal. In the heat of the moment, will people try to shield, or will they try to attack? Given that you have been applying the consistent pressure, this is in YOUR tides to decide. Let me try to explain.
When you've applied pressure to your opponent, and you're in the air, falling, ready to make a move on them, what's the move they expect? They should be expecting an aerial, as fair is always the tool of choice in frontal aerial approaches. That's how Sheik gets her combo game started!
However.. Do they forget that Sheik's grabs combo as well?
Instead of using an aerial, fast fall and GRAB them and catch their shields. This is the popular tech known as 'tomahawking' which includes baiting out a shield by tricking people into thinking your option is to attack. It takes fairly fast inputs to do this however, and fast falling is really important. Otherwise they can react to your bluff. In some cases, it may be better to cross people up (land behind them) then grab.
(YOU CAN ALSO LAND IN FRONT OF THEM THEN JAB!)
Her grab game is phenomenal, and from the ground a dash grab can be really telegraphed. Who wouldn't go for the grab from the ground? However, mixing a grab in from an aerial approach is probably one of the strongest and underrated tools in Sheik's game.
WALL JUMPING
Go in deep guys. Experiment. Go. In. Deep. ucandoit.
Sheik has the ability to catch people in the lower corners of the blast zone. Never be afraid. In Omega variations of Final Destination stages where there are walls. this is essentially another jump for Sheik. (This means you have a total of 3 jumps, bouncing fish, and your up+b to recover.) You can snap the wall and jump off of it when you're in the magnifying glass all the way down!! Ordinarily Sheik wouldn't be able to recovery from that low if she were on Battlefield. With walls however? Child's play. In a game where you don't have to worry about getting edge hogged, this method of edge guarding becomes immediately viable because of how much the risk plummets. You might get hit, but you won't lose your stock. That's all the difference in the world.
Walljumping is crucial in extending your boundaries for that small room to get that hit in.
Sheik can cling onto walls as well, (I believe for around 4-6 seconds) so you can literally STAY on the bottom of FD and wait for people's low recoveries, then smack them out of it.
I'm still experimenting with this as we speak, but from what I've tested this is massively rewarding.
SPECIAL CANCELLING
I'm still in the early stages of experimentation with this, and as far as I'm concerned special cancelling can be very situational, but if it can reward a stock or prevent a death, it's worth learning.
All of Sheik's specials besides her upwards special can be cancelled on ledges. Her bouncing fish, grenade, and needles all have their respective and useful utility out of cancelling on ledges.
Needles
If you have fully charged needles, you can throw them as you're running off a ledge to cancel the animation of her throw to follow up. Normally when you use needles, you usually see the minor cooldown on Sheik's animation, but with this method, you can get guaranteed follow-ups out of cancelling. (If anyone has the link of the vine where the japanese Sheik cancels needles into bouncing fish, can you please link it so I can put it here?)
Bouncing Fish
You can use cancelled Bouncing Fish to close horizontal gaps to get the edge guard if people are far away. For example, if I'm in the middle of battlefield and my opponent was maybe 4-5 character lengths away from grabbing the ledge, I could run, bouncing fish to cancel my animation on the ledge then bouncing fish again. Or I might bouncing fish to cancel to fair.
Additionally, you can use it to cancel off ledges to get away safely. I've accidentally bouncing fish'd onto the platforms on battlefield, then cancelled it to a bair to cover my landing.
Grenades
I actually will try to refute the usage of this move.
This has been covered in other Sheik threads as to why its useful. You can cancel a large amount of cooldown on gravity grenade by throwing out a grenade right as you run off stage.
However, winning the neutral position in this game and pushing your stage control on your opponents is so important, why would you ever forsake the little space you might have to throw a move that's telegraphed and easily blocked? The move has fairly long start-up, and the visual cue of the whirlwind gives it away. I've had Sheiks do this to me before and I merely blocked. Then what? You have them getting up from the ledge? That's exactly where I wanted you, and now I'm going to smack you.
The utility in this is surely there however, but not as much as people imply there is. If you're absolutely cornered to the point where you only have 2 character spaces worth of stage control, then this might be a viable option. However, I don't think people realize how much of a disadvantage being on the ledge is. Why throw a telegraphed hitbox, when I can stand at the edge and shield? This tech would've been extremely rewarding in the other smash games, where ledge invincibility is granted infinitely, but in a game where you have seconds to think on your feet before your foe can just run off and hit you, I would most certainly not advise it. Even MORE so, you're playing a game where you can't get pushed off an edge with shield pressure.
My verdict remains that it is ultimately better to shield, and needle.
*This thread is still going to be updated. I'm going to add a 'key terms' section so if there is anything said here that you guys don't understand (a particular word, move, term) then I'll highlight it red and explain in the bottom. Additionally, I'll be adding more content as well.*
Welcome to class boys.
Sheik has always been a very solid character throughout the Smash series. Her combo and gimping potential in Melee was one of the best, and she had an unrivaled tech chase game. I believe Sheik was extremely under represented in Brawl, as the only prominent Sheiks (Judo + Cross) could do so much in a Metaknight/ICs infested meta-game. She had the necessary kit to do well (much similar to Sm4sh) but she lacked killpower in a game where people lived forever. Additionally, edge guarding (as in deep edge guarding, going off stage) was not really a thing in Brawl, and I believe that's where Sheik shines.
Sheik's returns in Smash 4, but this time, she's actually a threat. The addition of Bouncing Fish has MASSIVELY buffed her ability to cover options, extend combos, get kills, and recover. ALL OF THESE have been problems for her in the past; not anymore.
By inherent design Sheik is an amazing character. All of her aerials come out quick, and have little-to-none cooldown on landing. Her grabs combo into her aerials, or they set up for 50-50 reads, which rarely ANY OTHER CHARACTER'S GRABS do. Immediately, we're in the advantage. Not to mention, we have a GROUND GAME, that sets up for our AIR GAME? Forward tilt and down tilt are so good as a means of shield pressure. It's an excellent boxing game tool as well. Not to mention we have a fairly good jab. (If only jabs true combo'd into stuff like in Melee)
Given her face value, Sheik is a strong character indeed. But what exactly pushes her to the top? I'll say it now guys:
Her mix-ups.
TOMAHAWKING
Sheik's dash speed + fast fall speed is phenomenal. In the heat of the moment, will people try to shield, or will they try to attack? Given that you have been applying the consistent pressure, this is in YOUR tides to decide. Let me try to explain.
When you've applied pressure to your opponent, and you're in the air, falling, ready to make a move on them, what's the move they expect? They should be expecting an aerial, as fair is always the tool of choice in frontal aerial approaches. That's how Sheik gets her combo game started!
However.. Do they forget that Sheik's grabs combo as well?
Instead of using an aerial, fast fall and GRAB them and catch their shields. This is the popular tech known as 'tomahawking' which includes baiting out a shield by tricking people into thinking your option is to attack. It takes fairly fast inputs to do this however, and fast falling is really important. Otherwise they can react to your bluff. In some cases, it may be better to cross people up (land behind them) then grab.
(YOU CAN ALSO LAND IN FRONT OF THEM THEN JAB!)
Her grab game is phenomenal, and from the ground a dash grab can be really telegraphed. Who wouldn't go for the grab from the ground? However, mixing a grab in from an aerial approach is probably one of the strongest and underrated tools in Sheik's game.
WALL JUMPING
Go in deep guys. Experiment. Go. In. Deep. ucandoit.
Sheik has the ability to catch people in the lower corners of the blast zone. Never be afraid. In Omega variations of Final Destination stages where there are walls. this is essentially another jump for Sheik. (This means you have a total of 3 jumps, bouncing fish, and your up+b to recover.) You can snap the wall and jump off of it when you're in the magnifying glass all the way down!! Ordinarily Sheik wouldn't be able to recovery from that low if she were on Battlefield. With walls however? Child's play. In a game where you don't have to worry about getting edge hogged, this method of edge guarding becomes immediately viable because of how much the risk plummets. You might get hit, but you won't lose your stock. That's all the difference in the world.
Walljumping is crucial in extending your boundaries for that small room to get that hit in.
Sheik can cling onto walls as well, (I believe for around 4-6 seconds) so you can literally STAY on the bottom of FD and wait for people's low recoveries, then smack them out of it.
I'm still experimenting with this as we speak, but from what I've tested this is massively rewarding.
SPECIAL CANCELLING
I'm still in the early stages of experimentation with this, and as far as I'm concerned special cancelling can be very situational, but if it can reward a stock or prevent a death, it's worth learning.
All of Sheik's specials besides her upwards special can be cancelled on ledges. Her bouncing fish, grenade, and needles all have their respective and useful utility out of cancelling on ledges.
Needles
If you have fully charged needles, you can throw them as you're running off a ledge to cancel the animation of her throw to follow up. Normally when you use needles, you usually see the minor cooldown on Sheik's animation, but with this method, you can get guaranteed follow-ups out of cancelling. (If anyone has the link of the vine where the japanese Sheik cancels needles into bouncing fish, can you please link it so I can put it here?)
Bouncing Fish
You can use cancelled Bouncing Fish to close horizontal gaps to get the edge guard if people are far away. For example, if I'm in the middle of battlefield and my opponent was maybe 4-5 character lengths away from grabbing the ledge, I could run, bouncing fish to cancel my animation on the ledge then bouncing fish again. Or I might bouncing fish to cancel to fair.
Additionally, you can use it to cancel off ledges to get away safely. I've accidentally bouncing fish'd onto the platforms on battlefield, then cancelled it to a bair to cover my landing.
Grenades
I actually will try to refute the usage of this move.
This has been covered in other Sheik threads as to why its useful. You can cancel a large amount of cooldown on gravity grenade by throwing out a grenade right as you run off stage.
However, winning the neutral position in this game and pushing your stage control on your opponents is so important, why would you ever forsake the little space you might have to throw a move that's telegraphed and easily blocked? The move has fairly long start-up, and the visual cue of the whirlwind gives it away. I've had Sheiks do this to me before and I merely blocked. Then what? You have them getting up from the ledge? That's exactly where I wanted you, and now I'm going to smack you.
The utility in this is surely there however, but not as much as people imply there is. If you're absolutely cornered to the point where you only have 2 character spaces worth of stage control, then this might be a viable option. However, I don't think people realize how much of a disadvantage being on the ledge is. Why throw a telegraphed hitbox, when I can stand at the edge and shield? This tech would've been extremely rewarding in the other smash games, where ledge invincibility is granted infinitely, but in a game where you have seconds to think on your feet before your foe can just run off and hit you, I would most certainly not advise it. Even MORE so, you're playing a game where you can't get pushed off an edge with shield pressure.
My verdict remains that it is ultimately better to shield, and needle.
*This thread is still going to be updated. I'm going to add a 'key terms' section so if there is anything said here that you guys don't understand (a particular word, move, term) then I'll highlight it red and explain in the bottom. Additionally, I'll be adding more content as well.*
