Nothing like smash bros theory early in the morning.
You're contradicting yourself by saying "every good person knows to avoid getting grabbed by sheik", and then saying that getting a grab with marth is not that hard. I play Marth, it's hard to get a grab with him... people know how to avoid grabs from Marth. In theory, it's actually easier to grab with Sheik because of needles (shuffled needles into grab).
Alright then, it is hard to get a grab against any person, but marth does have a long inital dash animation and can pivot grab a lot easier than say, sheik, whose dash dance is a lot trickier and much shorter. I also feel like because marth can control your spacing so well because of his priority that he can force you into a lot of bad positions (on ledges, right near the ledge, into a roll) that sheik can't force you into. thus making a grab easier when you're forced to roll or do some other stupid thing.
And needling > grab only works if they approach, and as you point out, the only people who need to are not her worst and not her most common matchups. And on platform stages, this technique becomes much less viable.
I don't see what you mean by saying "using platforms to camp is hard because she doesn't have a move with priority that hits under her." Camping platforms with Sheik is a legit strategy because of her needles.
There is camping on one platform (see m2k in the beginning of most matches w/ platforms; he forces people to approach and probably frustrates them a little as well). then there is platform camping. Going from platform to platform to force your opponent to jump in the air and get out of position or something. Sheik can't go from platform to platform well because none of her moves hit below her with priority. Sure you can stay on one platform, but what that takes is for someone to run under the platform, shield the needles when you inevitably sh and throw them, and then you are over them on a platform. That's bad.
I don't know much about Sheik's grab range but whenever I play as her, it seems like it's just a little worse than Marth's grab range.
It's definitely smaller than marths. Whenever I play marth I feel like his is huge and sheiks feels tiny. Idk about that one though.
Tech Chasing being "hard" is irrelevant. Tech Chasing is something you can learn and practice, so difficulty doesn't matter.
So jc shining til you break someone's shield or perfect drillshine shield pressure being hard is irrelevant then. Too bad nobody can do either of those consistently because they are way too technically demanding. If someone could, then fox breaks the game.
Tech chasing with sheik is really hard against ox and falco, and even top level sheiks mess it up. That's why you'll see them go for usmash or dash attack to rack up damage, because they can't tech chase perfectly forever. Human reflexes just aren't that good.
"She gets waveshine grabbed, uthrown easily"
That would mean that Fox would have to approach Sheik, which is dangerous because Fox can get grabbed by Sheik if they smash DI the dair or nair (therefore avoiding the shine, and then grabbing), or Sheik can simply wavedash back and grab. Don't get me wrong, waveshine grab is legit as hell, but it's dangerous.
You don't have to approach to get a shine. And why drill anyway? You can approach with running shine to. You can spotdodge shine. follow a tech, and shine. And at low to mid percents,
late nair shine works on sheik and can't be CC punished.
And I've never seen anyone smash DI an nair and avoid the shine, maybe I'm just not looking.
"Her tilts are mostly overrated because people run into them"
lolwtf. So people know how to avoid getting grabbed by sheik but they don't know how to not run into her tilts?
No, people do know how to avoid them a lot. That's why sheiks don't win major tournaments, because good aren't going to run in recklessly and give sheik an easy tilt. She has to work or them at high levels. N00bs fail at everything, I'm talking about high level play, where sheik becomes less of an unstoppable force and people think while they play.
Needles are extremely useful against any character. I would say the projectile tier list is: falco's lasers, fox's lasers, peach's turnips, sheik's needles, doc's pills, etc. So out of all the projectiles in the game, Sheik has the 4th best. That's pretty close to amazing.
And to that I would say: ok, but doesn't that just say that there aren't a lot of amazing projectiles in this game? Sheiks needles are ok but they aren't game-breaking (depending on the match up probably: vs falcon if she didn't have them, it'd be a lot harder).
Big wtf here. I don't see how "being a better character" has anything to do with smarter players using said character. That's like saying Pikachu is a better character than Ice Climbers because Axe is smarter than any other Ice Climbers player (a pretty bad example but that's the best I got). Also, Sheik has about the same representation as Marth (Amsah outplacing M2K at pound 4).
Why look at one tourney or an extreme case to prove a point?
All I was trying to say that a really smart person playing marth is more effective than a really smart person playing sheik. That's just imho though, based on the thousands of videos I've watched and all the matchup guides I've read (and I used to main marth... lol now I hate him with a burning passion).
huh? Almost all of Sheik's attacks eventually combo into forward air, which sets up into a needle edgeguard or back air edgeguard. You can argue that this is similar for Marth as well, but after 120ish%, Marth has no real way to kill. He's got no combos at that percent, and most Marths end up getting a lucky hit that sets up into an edgeguard. Sheik at least has needles and can afford to be patient and camp while waiting for an opportunity. Marth ends up just getting poked around and projectiled. Sheik's dtilt and jab also combo into forward air at higher percents, and Marth doesn't have any of that.
The problem with this is that at mid and high percents, sheik can get a kill and edgeguard off of a dash attack or ftilt (usually). But at low to mid percents, marth can get gimps, chaingrabs, guaranteed tippers from uthrow, and stupid crap like that. The whole thing is also very stage dependent, because at some percents on each stage, character can just platform tech a grab or a ftilt. They both have good kill setups, yes.
Also...
Yeah, he's got a chain grab. On Fox and Falco. Sheik can chain grab half the cast.
"mean edge game"? Sheik's edge game is better, mostly because of needles.
No, he has a tech chase on fox, falco, falcon (I guess he has a chaingrab at like 130 % though, but what's the point?). Cg on yoshi, sheik, ganon (<<until like 60%?), and bowser. Maybe I'm missing some, but its not half the cast.
I understand that Sheik has flaws, but you are overrating those flaws. Sheik is an all around better character than Marth. She's got better matchups, a better edge game, a better grab game, a more reliable way to get said grabs, and she's got a projectile.
I really don't think sheik is better. You should definitely try and play her seriously (if youre allowed to pick up a secondary). I think when you play sheik you realize her limits a lot more. But I suppose the same could be said for me, cause I haven't played marth in about half a year.