Sheik Patch Changes Discussion

[ShinRamen]

Nietono's saying that Sheik's fair chaining is no-where near as good now on his twitter, I dunno myself but he probably knows more than I do.

 

[Jlp]

@ Absol is right, playing Sheik is about out playing the opponent. If she doesn't have the greatest or many kill moves that doesn't mean you can't win. Playing Sheik well isn't easy which makes it all the more satisfying.

 

[exnecross]

@ Absol is right, playing Sheik is about out playing the opponent. If she doesn't have the greatest or many kill moves that doesn't mean you can't win. Playing Sheik well isn't easy which makes it all the more satisfying.

Prepare for all the "Sheik is easy to play, braindead fair string" comments if she's the new top character. They've already started, I noticed.. They couldn't be more wrong.

 

[Absol]

And we'll just play them a song on the world's smallest harp.

 

[exnecross]

We're too cool to use the world's smallest violin.

edit: I can't believe it took me a few seconds to get that reference.

 

[Zankoku]

To be fair, she IS pretty easy to play, and when you throw them and go for a fair for the first time and notice the obvious setup into another fair, and so on, it DOES seem both straightforwardly intuitive and simple.

The excellent tools in neutral are all still there, and all that's really needed is a good understanding of how to play the game. Loss of bair makes it take longer for KOs, but let's be honest here - Sheik always made her trade by repeatedly winning engagement through her low-risk option set anyway, so what's doing it for another three touches per stock?

 

[exnecross]

I mean, I wouldn't say she is hard to play as a general statement, but relative to the rest of the cast there is definitely more intricacy in playing Sheik. Some combos are easy and reliable at low %, however setting up the majority of her combos against a good opponent is another story entirely.

If you're gonna say that she is easy because she is safe, then I'd be willing to agree to some extent, however I cannot entertain the notion of her being an easy character to play when she relies so heavily on out-playing your opponent to score KOs. There is no "proper" way to play Sheik in the way that there is most other characters, if you notice the top Sheiks all have a very different style of play due to her many options, to a greater extent than most of the roster.

But, I think the most damning thing is the fact that so many Sheiks never make it out of the first pool in tournies. I know you hear this a lot, but it is true. Sheiks just have a harder time making it through. I don't claim to know why, but I do know that it is a testament to her relative difficulty.

This should have probably been posted in the general thread, sorry. Also sorry for not getting back to you the other day, I just didn't have enough energy after class.

 

[Zankoku]

Perhaps I'm being harshly critical about this, but I feel that the Sheik players not making it out of pools would have been unlikely to do any better with anyone else in the cast anyway. Except maybe Diddy. She's definitely not a character that someone can just faceroll and win with (which, in Smash, I don't think anyone is), but out of the entire cast Sheik just seemed to be one of those half dozen characters where everything just comes naturally as long as you understand the pacing and gameflow of Smash. But maybe I'm underestimating how intuitive it is to just easily win neutral twice as much into a kill instead of trying to force an early one.

 

[SR-71]

Anyone able to confirm that fair is unchanged? Sorry i have limited access to testing materials xD

 

[shadowdude]

Perhaps I'm being harshly critical about this, but I feel that the Sheik players not making it out of pools would have been unlikely to do any better with anyone else in the cast anyway. Except maybe Diddy. She's definitely not a character that someone can just faceroll and win with (which, in Smash, I don't think anyone is), but out of the entire cast Sheik just seemed to be one of those half dozen characters where everything just comes naturally as long as you understand the pacing and gameflow of Smash. But maybe I'm underestimating how intuitive it is to just easily win neutral twice as much into a kill instead of trying to force an early one.

It is hard in a way to use sheik.sure damadge is easy to stack up and doesn't take a incredible amount of effort,but she is really hard to close a stock out with.the thing that separates a skilled sheik player to a unskilled sheik player is the ability to out play a opponent and actually get the ko.that's what I think at least.

Also I can still edge guard with bair it just requires me to go more deep and time it better.also the new bair combos are fun to use,at least for me it is.

 

[reallyfastcar]

I can live with her bair being nerfed but if her fair has more KB that takes a lot of fun out of sheik.
Can anyone confirm this?

 

[Tristan_win]

I can live with her bair being nerfed but if her fair has more KB that takes a lot of fun out of sheik.
Can anyone confirm this?

Fair does not have more knock back.

 

[reallyfastcar]

Fair does not have more knock back.

WOOHOO THANKYOU SIR!

 

[Tristan_win]

Just for **** and giggles I'll post this here

I decided to check out diddy new uair.

On the 3ds training mode with Mario standing in his starting location on battlefield.

Sheik uair kill's mario at 184% with kill effect (7% total damage)

Diddy kong uair kill's mario at 185% with kill effect (6 total damage)

Welcome diddy kong to level Sheik, maybe now HOO-AHH will finally die.

 

[Ralph Cecil]

Yeah I had a feeling the nerfs would put his kill power around there and was considering picking him up, because of that(and that he's not stupid af anymore).

 

[hankydysplasia]

I'm having a really hard time stringing together even 2 F-air's out of a non-DI'd forward throw. (Throw-Fair-fair with no jumping.) It seems like people and computers can easily air-dodge the second one. Granted I didn't test it in the previous version in training to see if it was true combo, but it certainly isn't now. I could do that in my sleep a few days ago. Please tell me I just lost some muscle memory by not playing for a few days.

 

[BlastHappyNinja]

So, anyone else expecting a ton of Diddy mains to be hopping off of the hoo-hah train and coming into the f-air station? I'm not looking forward to tier whores flooding in, but that's just me. Plus, who knows, we might learn something new from the flood if it does happen.

 

[Absol]

Sheiks Uair is actually better than Diddys when it comes to kill power now because our uair can push people up to our highest jump range before K.Oing

So, anyone else expecting a ton of Diddy mains to be hopping off of the hoo-hah train and coming into the f-air station? I'm not looking forward to tier *****s flooding in, but that's just me. Plus, who knows, we might learn something new from the flood if it does happen.

Rev up those black Sheiks. I'm sorry but can we just start calling every new player to sheik a black Sheik? For reasons I hope I dont have to explain.

 

[ArikadoSD]

I'm having a really hard time stringing together even 2 F-air's out of a non-DI'd forward throw. (Throw-Fair-fair with no jumping.) It seems like people and computers can easily air-dodge the second one. Granted I didn't test it in the previous version in training to see if it was true combo, but it certainly isn't now. I could do that in my sleep a few days ago. Please tell me I just lost some muscle memory by not playing for a few days.

This is because fthrow can't combo into multiple fairs from 0% on most mid/light weight characters, from my experience. What you should do is fthrow to bouncing fish from 0%, maybe once or twice, then attempt a fair string from fthrow, provided you do short gop fast falling fairs.

 

[hankydysplasia]

This is because fthrow can't combo into multiple fairs from 0% on most mid/light weight characters, from my experience. What you should do is fthrow to bouncing fish from 0%, maybe once or twice, then attempt a fair string from fthrow, provided you do short gop fast falling fairs.

Ya, I usually use the Bouncing Fish combo, but sometimes against the heavyweights I love to pressure them with the fairs. I'm not talking about Jigglypuff problems. It was happening to me against Ganondorf & Ike.

I'm now a little more sympathetic to all those people posting specious changes after the patch came out. I'm not trying to go on a wild goose chase, but it sure seems like the hitlstun on Fair was decreased or the endlag on Fair was increased. The opponent isn't floating out of range, just seems like they have more time to air dodge.

 

[WondrousMoose]

Rev up those black Sheiks. I'm sorry but can we just start calling every new player to sheik a black Sheik? For reasons I hope I dont have to explain.

I do love me a good play on words. Yeah, I feel that a lot of Diddy's popularity was due to his ease of use. He's still good - don't get me wrong - but he'll require more effort when playing, and a lot of players weren't asking for that.

 

[JC10101]

I'm having problems now with KOs. Is the only option now bouncing fish chains?

 

[ArikadoSD]

I'm having problems now with KOs. Is the only option now bouncing fish chains?

The only option now are kill set ups and/or gimping.

Taken directly from skype, specifically from user @ Jaxas

[0:04:27] Jaxas Scarlet: Speaking of kill-setups, with the new Bair they're even more important than ever; mind letting me know any that I missed?
- Dtilt->Uair
- Needles->BF
- Soft Nair->BF
- Bair->BF (?)
- Ftilt->Uair (?)
- Get them to 180% -> Ftilt (my favorite! >.>)

These are pretty much all known kill set ups for sheik so far. I've been playing around in training mode and discovered that the 2nd hit of utilt can combo into bouncing fish if you run up, quickly jump, and do bouncing fish, but it's very unreliable because utilt is hard to hit itself.

 

[Ralph Cecil]

This influx of new Sheiks is going to be like every other influx of new Sheiks lol. They'll play her from somewhere between a week and a month and then drop her once they find out she's harder than they expected while claiming "She just doesn't fit my playstyle". It's happened quite a few times now with the same results everytime. I'm mostly curious about who they're going to jump to after Sheik. Also I love that my getting people to kill % for ftilt is a more serious option with Sheik now lmao.

EDIT: For ftilt uair I feel like that's like dthrow uair where it's DI, %, rage, and boundary based for the kill. For bair to BF I haven't messed with it any, but heard someone try to hype it up as a guaranteed kill option at 80-90, but I think they're full of it given I rarely get BF to kill at that % anyways unless it was deep and on SV or something.

 

[Estryark]

bair to bf doesn't kill at 80-90% but soft bair to bf is a combo that works at high percent (even at 120-130%) but still won't kill in most situations unless you are at the edge

I always had the feeling that the ftilt > uair stops to be true when it can KO, or becomes more strict to pull off. Every damn time I go for it they air dodge, same with dthrow > uair. Like you said, the boundary and the rage is most likely the factor to make this happen.

My favorite kills are from FThrow>Short Hop bait the airdodge> Upsmash/Vanish but...that's a ridiculous setup (for me, can't speak for everybody) to make it connect. Personally, it is upsetting losing a kill move while still having the worst smash attacks in the game when other characters are untouched.

 

[BlastHappyNinja]

Sheiks Uair is actually better than Diddys when it comes to kill power now because our uair can push people up to our highest jump range before K.Oing



Rev up those black Sheiks. I'm sorry but can we just start calling every new player to sheik a black Sheik? For reasons I hope I dont have to explain.

Don't do it. Don't you do it. Oh my god.

 

[Ralph Cecil]

Yeah I didn't think it was a legit setup, but just throwing it out there that someone said it was. Also i'll probably never stop saying this, but airdodge baits should pretty much never be a thing for Sheik later on in the game when people realize that your options are potentially die or take 5% and try to recover(which is less likely to get you killed now with the bair nerf).

EDIT:Also sup Estryark. :D Onett Boyz hype

 

[Zankoku]

Baiting air-dodges is much more threatening when it's not a particularly committed read. For example, at higher percents when throw setups are no longer guaranteed, I like to dthrow into uair, and occasionally delay my uair to bait an air-dodge. I'll lose the followup if they elect to not air-dodge, but it doesn't really leave me in any sort of punishable or disadvantaged state (if they escaped by double jumping, they're still stuck having to find a way to land); meanwhile, it's still a threat since pretty much anything that isn't air-dodge will lose to the immediate uair. Learning to play off of these "soft baits" will give you a nice bit of potential reward even among the higher levels of play, while not abandoning the advantage of Sheik's immense safety in her overall gameplay.

 

[Estryark]

I should try finishing with uairs more I think I am trying way to hard with upsmash and vanish but they are so good

 

[?.?]

I'm one of the few sheiks who has no trouble tipping u-smash I guess? It's honestly my second best kill move next to bf in terms of number of kills I've gotten with it at tournament level, most players don't realize it's two hits either so you can use it occasionally on a shield and not have to worry... I've actually gotten kills with it on ledge that way lol

 

[CaioG]

Pretty disappointing. The Bair nerf will hit Sheik really hard, my guess is that in a couple of tier lists she's out of top 5.
I'm also having a harder time making Fthrow > Fairs with DIs, it has always been a true combo for me even at high percents, but I can't seem to hit it now. I changed from tablet to a gamecube controller this week so that might have something do with it.

I hit a sweetspotted Bair today at like 135%, and I was at some 110% so I had some rage on, and even close to platform I couldn't get the kill. I have a feeling Bair won't even be a decent gimping tool anymore.

 

[Zankoku]

I'm having a lot of trouble thinking of any character definitively better than Sheik right now, let alone five of them.

 

[Absol]

Mii brawler tho

 

[CaioG]

Well, time will tell, but I think Sonic and ZSS will both have the upper hand on Sheik from now on. Sonic is very hard to punish and landing a K.O hit is nearly impossible with it being so fast, and ZSS plays somewhat similar to Sheik but with a lot more kill power.
More than losing a kill move, Sheik lost a very important gimping tool in its arsenal, when gimping is an intrisicant part of Sheik's play. I've heard reports of Bairs not even killing when offstage edgeguarding, when your enemy is so close to the dying zone. Now all we are left with is U-Smash and Bouncing Fish, both which require setups and reads and the latter being VERY punishable.

I'd love to eat crow, I think Bair could have been nerfed, but it just didn't need to be this much. Maybe put 75% of the KB that the move previously had would have made it still a competent move.

 

[?.?]

I think you're exaggerating this quite a bit and underestimating the new bair, first off gimping doesn't refer to killing an opponent offscreen, it refers to denying recovery... What made bair so good at it before wasn't just it's sheer knockback but also it's speed (frame 4) and range, oh and the new bair being so weak might actually be able to help us gimp... Say hello to bair>BF edge guards amongst other things. (I feel bad for DK)

Reads aren't punishable if you're correct and since most good reads are based off habits or simply a superior knowledge of options, you should be able to get most right assuming you practice and think properly, don't forget you can condition people to do what you want given enough time.

I also like to think positive I guess and think this is could easily be viewed as a buff for sheik making her stronger at what she should be doing rather than fishing for kills

@ Zankoku You know, I agree with you here... I can think of characters slightly better than us at certain things but no one overall a better character. Although after this patch my knowledge of characters potential is skewed

 

[Jaxas]

IMO, Potential candidates for "Top X" (whatever 'S' tier is) are , , , , , , and maaaybe jabcancel .

Rosalina got buffed hard... by removing Diddy from the equation.
Brawler/Pikachu/ZSS are seemingly untouched by the patch (besides having some of their worst MUs nerfed)
Fox can jab forever on top of his solid kit, but I honestly don't know how much that helps.
Sheik and Sonic are both still insanely solid, but have been brought down a peg; we'll see how much.

Honestly though, I'd probably put Brawler Sheik or Pikachu at first right now.

Also, does the new Bair still have a strong stage-spike?

 

[Tumultus]

People overestimate ZSS to a ridiculous extent. She has no neutral and is strictly a punish character, with a grab that is literally slower than average human reaction time. Every approach is a commitment, and her greatest tool (up-b obviously) is not only strict on positioning but also becomes a DI read at later percents.

In addition, she's got bad MUs with every other top tier character. Relax with the ZSS claims, she's not THAT good. Barely cracks top 10, confirmed.

 

[?.?]

@ Jaxas it's questionable and will probably require some testing, but two nights ago I landed one at I want to say 78% and it was enough to meteor (shulk)... I think it'll be MU specific. As I know my training partner (MM) doesn't care anymore about it unless he's at insane %'s lol.

 

[migul]

Well, time will tell, but I think Sonic and ZSS will both have the upper hand on Sheik from now on. Sonic is very hard to punish and landing a K.O hit is nearly impossible with it being so fast, and ZSS plays somewhat similar to Sheik but with a lot more kill power.
More than losing a kill move, Sheik lost a very important gimping tool in its arsenal, when gimping is an intrisicant part of Sheik's play. I've heard reports of Bairs not even killing when offstage edgeguarding, when your enemy is so close to the dying zone. Now all we are left with is U-Smash and Bouncing Fish, both which require setups and reads and the latter being VERY punishable.

I'd love to eat crow, I think Bair could have been nerfed, but it just didn't need to be this much. Maybe put 75% of the KB that the move previously had would have made it still a competent move.

One word about this: needles. This is what makes Sheik win these matchups as ZSS and Sonic can't challenge it well. They both lack long range projectiles and good approaches to get through them and now, like other people say just them to ~180% and ftilt them. Sheik just really needs to play patiently and camp on them, then punish approaches. Also, the only kill options Sonic has I believe are his smashes.(Back throw no longer kills)

 

[Retro X]

People overestimate ZSS to a ridiculous extent. She has no neutral and is strictly a punish character, with a grab that is literally slower than average human reaction time. Every approach is a commitment, and her greatest tool (up-b obviously) is not only strict on positioning but also becomes a DI read at later percents.

In addition, she's got bad MUs with every other top tier character. Relax with the ZSS claims, she's not THAT good. Barely cracks top 10, confirmed.

Am ZSS main, can confirm.

One word about this: needles. This is what makes Sheik win these matchups as ZSS and Sonic can't challenge it well. They both lack long range projectiles and good approaches to get through them and now, like other people say just them to ~180% and ftilt them. Sheik just really needs to play patiently and camp on them, then punish approaches. Also, the only kill options Sonic has I believe are his smashes.(Back throw no longer kills)

Getting Sonic to 180% will take a long time...the more time that goes on the greater chance of the Sheik player making a mistake and getting punished hard for it by rage Sonic. Although the Sonic player may also make mistakes during a long match Sheik has more trouble turning those mistakes into kills...and Sonic's bthrow still kills, just not quite as early.

I can't imagine what it would be like if ZSS' bair was nerfed, it's the only thing she can reliably kill with in that 110-130% range, once it gets past there she might as well just uair if she has rage. Killing with vanish/bfish/usmash/fsmash all typically require some sort of read, you can't just kill by throwing out bair after bair like ZSS can because those moves are all highly unsafe. Like trying to kill with ZSS' fsmash/flipjumpkick/boost kick...it can be very impractical. Nevertheless I am very interested to see how the meta develops and who will claim the #1 on the tier list in this post-patch world, though theory-smashing is fun for now~