R.O.B. Matchup Analysis #2 - Sheik

[GwJ]

Post information and notes about the R.O.B. vs. Sheik matchup here.

 

[Mister Eric]

I'm about to rip this thread a new one
give me a day or two.

 

[Brazen Rook]

Well, I can't speak all that much from experience, being new to the competitive scene and all, but I will put a few notes here to get the ball rolling (or gyro spinning? hehe... eh). This will mostly come from tournament matches I've watched and a few things I found on the Sheik boards, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

-So, Sheik looks like a tough matchup for ROB. She can quickly close the gap, and once she's in its fairly easy for her to start racking up damage.

-I know its common knowledge that Sheik's throws combo into her aerials easily, but I just want to say that ROB seems to suffer from this a lot more than others. Getting free of juggles is hard for us as it is, but with Sheik's quick aerials and decent jump height, this problem becomes even more obvious. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong but if Sheik is below us, our only options to safely land are, what? Either air-dodge or Nair?

-While Sheik's recover is pretty good, her UpB has a slight delay at the start where we can potentially Dair spike her if done quickly. We have to be a bit careful though, as Sheik's UpB has a fairly strong, decent sized explosion near the start, right after she rises up slightly. Its probably best to aim Dair just above where she's about to rise to so that we don't risk getting stage spiked.

-Up until about 20%, Sheik can forward throw us into a guaranteed Bouncing Fish. If we don't DI away after this %, and instead DI inwards, the combo is guaranteed until about 35%. Even after these %s, a throw near the edge into a Bouncing Fish off stage is deadly if improperly DI'd.

-Not sure how much it matters but if the Sheik player decides to pressure us with needles, a spinning gyro on the ground stops all of them. They also cause the gyro to bounce back, so we have an easier time picking it up.

 

[Mister Eric]

This MU needs to be taken very seriously imo before people start catching on with how strong this MU is for Sheik.
I'm typing this from a state of discouragment after playing against a Sheik that completely shut me down in tourney yesterday. He's a buddy of mine (my dubz partner) and I hope to work a lot with him in the near future to hurry and figure this MU out. And it's not just this guy. I've been struggling with any Sheik -- new or experienced.

What I've been told by good Sheik players is this:
"When we approach you with a fair, don't shield it, challenge it"

Let me elaborate on this peice of advice and why it doesn't sit well with me.
First off, Sheik is extremely mobile both in the air and on the ground. It's true that Sheik doesn't have the greatest priority but when we have a fair that doesn't reach far nor stay out long, Sheik can simply empty jump towards us bait an aerial and then punish promptly.

She can shield your projectiles while getting close to you with ease due to her mobility.

She gimps us quite easily.

Falling with nair isn't a very safe option against her.

Bouncing fish over gyro.

Perhaps spacing a nair while fighting her can be of some use. Jabs too. I think jabs MIGHT be able to challenge her quick in-your-face game.

I'm a mess, ROB boards. I really need your help on this MU. I hate it haha. I don't want to! And I'm going to try hard to figure it out. But I am a discouraged bot over it atm. I definitely don't think ROB will ever find this MU easy. What I can hope is, that there is a way to make the MU doable. I don't care if it requires more work. That comes with some MUs. I care if we have a fighting chance. In Brawl, I challenged the MK MU for my entire Brawl career. But I am against the ropes with this one. When I have a better understanding of it, I will compose a more organized write-up. Until then, please help.

 

[T0MMY]

Just played a good R.O.B. player in the WA monthly yesterday by the name of Xeak.
Being a Sheik player I felt like this matchup was very much in my character's favor. She is just so fast and has the speed/range enough to be on the acting/approaching end most of the time with little to punish on whiffs and hits on Shields its going to be a game of her racking up damage fast enough to score a Bouncing Fish, U-Smash, Vanish, or Aerial KO before R.O.B. has much time getting in his laser/gyro damage and a U-Air or Throw KO.
Not sure if it should be happening, but I feel like Sheik gimps R.O.B. a little easier than most characters. His U-Spec recovery is severely nerfed from Brawl he can't really get away from some of her Stage-guarding techniques.
Do we even want to talk about needles? They're so disruptive to R.O.B. and such a good option whenever you're not in his face unless he has his Gyro out on even ground (which I believe blocks out the needles). If he has it out as a needle wall then he doesn't have it in his claws and I love to pick it up and harass him with it (I have years of Gyro practice behind me)
One thing that I'm not sure if R.O.B. has a good response to is Sheik's U-air game. When she puts him into the air with a good throw he doesn't have his Reverse-B shenanigans like he did in Brawl so he can't quite manuever away from attacks like Sheik's U-Air and will end up relying on N-air to protect him on the way down and that's an easy bait & punish for Sheik. If he doesn't send a N-air he will probably air-dodge (bad choice all round) or try another aerial which doesn't seem helpful at all.
No defense against that U-air means KO potential that Sheik usually doesn't have on other characters who can move horizontally out of the way (like Diddy Kong) and R.O.B.'s F-spec ain't worth the risk trying to use it to maneuver away with most the time.

All these things need to be addressed if possible and other issues I may not be thinking at this time will be a pretty big obstacle for R.O.B. players to Stackup against.

I still think R.O.B. has a lot going for him, but seeing as I'm not on the robot side of things this time around I can only offer advice as a kind of double-agent ([^ ~]

For all interested in seeing the match mentioned in this post the match was livestreamed on 62-bit gaming's Twitch Channel

 

[Heropon_Riki]

I agree with everything so far, Sheik is a very tough matchup. She is unlike Flacon in that she has a projectile, and a fast one at that. I haven't put this to the test, but to me, the best approach would be a retreating nair, either SH or Full Hop depending on where the Sheik is. She can't really attack at an upwards diagonale angle, so I think this might be a good thing to take advantage of. Also, make sure to rarely use projectiles on the grounn when sheik is there with you, her speed combined with her ability to camp and punish is too good what with ROB's high lag on laser, and moderate lag on Gyro.

 

[#HBC | Scary]

My MU experience comes from 8bitman. He wins tons. I wanna actually say even but because my experience is so skewed on a player that's beating me, I would have heavy bias toward Sheik losing.

Instead, I'll provide our most recent set so you guys can pick it apart and giggle as I probably play the MU all wrong lol.

http://youtu.be/9u6ww8t5sxY

 

[Mister Eric]

My MU experience comes from 8bitman. He wins tons. I wanna actually say even but because my experience is so skewed on a player that's beating me, I would have heavy bias toward Sheik losing.

Instead, I'll provide our most recent set so you guys can pick it apart and giggle as I probably play the MU all wrong lol.

http://youtu.be/Cq4YyUivbY8

You gave us a set between you and Nick Riddle ya goof.
you meant to post this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u6ww8t5sxY
I'll let ya know if I see anything you could be doing better.

Thanks, dood. I live in the land of Judo, so...hopefully I can learn from this.

 

[#HBC | Scary]

OOPS lol. You're right. Lemme edit in just in case peeps click my link.

 

[crashbfan]

If sheik picks up the gyro they can use needles to zone you out and have a major advantage. nearly impossible to approach in that situation

 

[Lunix7]

Honestly imo this is R.O.B.'s toughest match up due to sheik's insane speed and rush down style of play. R.O.B.'s biggest weakness is characters with a rush down play style simply since R.O.B. can't react quickly enough to what is going on. I have played against a couple of good sheik players and usually its either insanely close with me barely winning or I just flat out lose to this match up. I think the problem is like what I have said earlier is that I can't react quickly enough and I get combo'ed into submission with sheik's insane combo and mind games. It also doesn't help that R.O.B. is a big target and easy to juggle while also having a predictable recovery. Add in the fact that sheik has a faster projectile then R.O.B. and you have an insane match up.

Now you may think that I think R.O.B. stands no chance against sheik but that's no true! I have won against a fair amount of good sheik players and I believe the best way to fight against a good sheik player is to play extremely defensive and take advantage of your projectiles. Now don't get me wrong its still going to be a hard match but skill always plays a part in the match.

Good luck my fellow R.O.B. players! Hope this helps someone out!

-

 

[GwJ]

Which characters should we be looking to as counterpicks against Sheik if we want to switch or how about stages to counterpick that work in our favor?

 

[Mister Eric]

@HolyNightmare gave some good insight on the MU via Skype:

"Sheik is pretty hard
Rob can kill her easily since sheik will rack a ton of damage on him and have an harder time killing him
Easiest move to land on her is dsmash
You can shield a lot of things and drop your shield to dsmash for a kill
If you do it too quick youll buffer a spotdodge sadly
The timing is weird
Lot of shield lag in this game"

Also, he noted about how when we are sitting in shield that the initial hit on our shield puts us in more shield stun than the second hit. I did not know this. What this means is if we take 2 hits of ftilt, there's a good chance that we can shield drop and punish.

Perhaps he'll have more to share on the matter soon.

 

[GwJ]

Coming back to this, can we get a rating on this matchup for the main thread?

 

[Xeak]

Xeak here. Planning on practicing against T0mmy's Sheik a whole lot later today so I'll hopefully come back with more information. In the mean time I'll let you know my thoughts from when we practiced last month.

The biggest thing he hit on in his post is the up air. We can't challenge it because of Sheik's incredibly jump speed vs our slow neutral and down airs. Your options are running away off stage as best as you can and mixing up back airs and air dodges to escape. Gyro does block needles as long as it is in the spinning state on the ground. Be very careful using laser, if you miss she has time to get to you and punish. You need to challenge every back air stage spike attempt with up air on your way back to the stage. I'm personally really bad at wall techs and have been working on that for the last month. If Sheik empty hops a lot Side B is a pretty good answer and Down Smash deals with the mix ups if you time it right.

Stage choices come down to your own comfort and how well you think you can grab them. Most people hate Lylat but I think it is our best stage choice here. It will mix up Sheik's timing with short hop fairs and her recovery has a high risk of being messed up by the stage. Our recovery doesn't care about Lylat at all. The low ceiling works in both character's favor but we can get a really early kill off the platforms with up throw. Getting used to laser and gyro on this stage is extremely important. Other stages I prefer are Town and City for more space to work with while keeping out platfroms and Battlefield because the platforms can often throw Sheik off and lend themselves to our up air and up throw.

I don't have much to go off of here but I'm picking up Pit almost exclusively to deal with Sheik. It isn't the best answer but he fit well with my playstyle and has the speed to challenge Sheik.

I put ROB vs Sheik at about 35/65 but it may be a little worse than that. I've only fought a small pool of strong Sheik players.

Hope this helps. Let me know if anyone has any questions about what I've said here. Hopefully be back with more later.

 

[Zegend]

Most people hate Lylat but I think it is our best stage choice here. [ ... ] Our recovery doesn't care about Lylat at all.

Yeah, this. I feel that Lylat is good for ROB but people who main other characters always complain when I pick it lol.

Back to Sheik though. A lot of the stuff I would have said has already been mentioned by the incredibly detailed posts by some of the users here, but I would agree with some people in saying that this is possibly ROB's hardest matchup. Sheik's ground speed, air speed, and juggle potential is insane, and it's normal that we suffer from this because of ROB's huge hurtbox and heaviness. I tend to use a lot of lasers, gyros and retreating nairs in this matchup because of Sheik's crazy punish game if you get too close.
Also that fthrow -> bouncing fish at low percents, along with needles at any percent, is so good at letting her rack up damage on you it's scary.

 

[Xeak]

Well T0mmy stomped me today, haha. I went on tilt really hard after the first couple games. Approaching is really dangerous and I had trouble toning down the aggression. We definitely want to play defensively, running away and punishing misspaced Forward Airs. I easily think this is ROB's hardest match up. Diddy isn't easy either but that's the tier list for you. Hopefully I can get some more practice in and revisit this thread later; I'd hate to give up on the robot in this match up. I don't really have anything else new to add but I said I'd post again so here I am.

 

[Crome]

It's been a good 3 months since something was last posted here, does anyone have anything new to add to the discussion? This is probably one of the most important MUs for R.O.B to learn.

One thing I've noticed (I'm a baddie so don't take this to heart) - You can't just play the neutral v Sheik. You have to challenge her and get the advantage first, and then you can add pressure with projectiles. You can't just carelessly throw our projectiles from across the stage like with other MUs, she'll punish you for shooting a gyro before you can even think about shooting one.

I've been considering picking up a secondary for this MU. Specifically for this MU, and hopefully not a really technical character.

 

[Zegend]

I've been considering picking up a secondary for this MU. Specifically for this MU, and hopefully not a really technical character.

I picked up Sheik for Sheik. I had no other choice

 

[Mister Eric]

I had no other choice

You might be surprised as to what choices are out there.

 

[Crome]

You might be surprised as to what choices are out there.

I'm considering following suit with Zegend. Could you go more in depth with our choices?

 

[Zegend]

You might be surprised as to what choices are out there.

Such as? Generally, the easiest time I have against Sheik is when I'm actually playing Shiek myself

 

[Xeak]

Xeak again. I'm a high placing ROB main in WA. I've been playing Cacogen, likely the best Sheik in the Northwest and easily the best player we have in WA. I haven't beaten him yet but I'm learning a lot more about the match up. It felt literally impossible when I first started fighting him but I've been happier with my performance lately. I no longer feel like defensive play is correct here. Chrome is absolutely right; You can't just play the neutral out like you would against anyone else and to most people's surprise ROB has to be the one approaching.

Spaced fairs and dtilts are incredibly important and will dictate the entire match. Sheik runs us over with combos and such but she still takes absolutely forever to kill. Always always always try to get back to neutral and get momentum going in your favor. Don't try to trade or beat her when she has the momentum, especially when she is below you. Always jump out of her throw to upb kill setup and just get back to neutral. If you don't let her land bouncing fish off stage or get caught by up smash she has little choice but to wait for fair to kill or challenge you off stage where your uair can mess with her.

Don't bother using laser unless she has been knocked far away and you have literally nothing else to do. Be incredibly careful with shooting gyro. Don't stop using it but make sure you're being more careful than ever with timing, try to cover landings or use it while you jump and retreat. As much as we love nair be careful with it too, fair is much more useful in this match up. If you have trouble getting to the ground mix things up as much as possible. Use bair and dair to throw them off of when and where you're landing.

Be patient for your kills. You should almost always kill sooner than her. Don't force the throw kills, she is really hard to get. Instead wait for a misspaced fair and get your up smash or at later percents punish with a down smash. Greedy sheiks will die to your uair when they go for the stage spike at lower percents than you might expect.

I hope some of this is useful to you guys. I'm happy to discuss the match up more if you want to ask about something I've said or any ideas I have about something I didn't talk about. I had given up on this match up entirely for a while but I found myself getting better at it recently and my switches didn't perform better at all. A main is a main for a reason, don't give up on them!

 

[Constadin]

I have found that upb is a good answer to her endless aerial combos and can save you from a bait - robs air dodge - upb kill of hers. Should you mess up with a bad landing, upb and try again changing the way you land (nair, fair, air dodge, edge etc).

When I started using upb more in this match up I feel like I havea chance to actually compete and even win

 

[Crome]

Here is a "translated" copy of a discussion the R.O.B FB Chat had on the Sheik MU. I thought it had some good advice, so they let me post it here. It's translated from a chatroom, so it'll kind of jump everywhere. I'm sorry for how disorganized it is, I just wanted to get these pics off my phone. If I had time i'd organize them into a coherent paragraph.

"[Sheik's] perfect auto cancel fair can't be touched"

"When they give me a ****ty bair (On shield, early hit?) I almost always drop shield down smash at low percent to set up a gyro tech chase. I'm taking every god damn percent"

"You can condition them to shield with gyro and get a dash grab that way"

"It's nice when they land with bair or nair (or an improperly timed fair), since you can usmash them OoS"

"Nair>grab at low percents, pray at low percents"

"Ledge gyro traps at high percent"

"Roll after shield fair, don't get into scuffles with her"

"Survive the 50/50 a few times until she can't do it anymore"

"Fair can sort of challenge her fair. You're going to lose most of the time, but trading with her isn't awful. Power shield her aerials is important"

 

[Crome]

Yet another piece of miscellaneous advice: Sitting in shield with a gyro in front of you makes a lot of her aerials unsafe on shield. Whether it hits her after the aerial, or the aerial hits it and she's in hitstun for a bit longer. It makes it so she can't just bully us in shield.