Q&A Sheik Strategy & QnA

[WHA?]

i got some questions

-what to do to avoid fox's shine>wavedash out of it>u-smash
does DIing away help? or DIing toward so that u dont get shined as far?

-whats the best way to get out of falco's pillaring?
my main problem is in the air........ so DI up or left/right?

 

[unknown522]

i gave a bunch of my strats in a long discussion/argument with amsah i forget where

but basically i force her to the air with grounded needles and ground charge store fakeouts and stuff.

then either intercept her in the air with spaced bairs, or let her land and mix up dash dance boost grabs, a lil dash dance fake to grab, or spaced aerial over her landings (cuz she has no lag u gotta bait a move or a roll after the aerial)

main thing is to hold your ground and don't get pushed to the corner or she traps you with her wall of moves

platform camp occasionally when necessary but don't let her under you or push you to the side. control the middle is so important in this matchup (cuz unlike fox u gain no real gimping benefit playing near the edge but she can throw u off and gimp u with her gay edgeguard)

needles, bair, and grab are sheiks best tools in like every matchup imo

thanks man. I appreciate it.

tell me everything you know about the falcon matchup

Falcon must be a real pain in the *** for your zelda I assume?

- CC -> grabbing/PS -> grabbing his aerials seems to be really good.

- D-throw tech chasing is amazing.

- when he decides not to tech on your d-throw, don't jab reset. Just crouch/shield near him and follow accordingly. You can also f-tilt/dash attack if you haven't staled those for some free damage. Alternatively, if they don't tech near the edge, you can just d-smash them off.
You can also try guessing with u-smash if you think that they won't tech, but I wouldn't recommend it.

- retreating SH b-airs when you think he's going to jump is Godsend. What you really want to do is try to trap him at the edge when he's DD camping you. Feint approaches and WD back, then stuffing his aerials with f-tilt/u-tilt/b-air/CC is really important.

- Staying on the ground as much as possible is really crucial (unless you're retreating with your aerial, or crossing up behind him I guess). It's a pain in the *** when falcon starts spamming moves directly below you.

- I'm pretty sure you know how to edgeguard falcon. Just take the edge and hit him, or let him on and combo him some more. Your choice.



uhhh, I'm missing some stuff.

Oh yeah, camping under platforms when you have a lead is so ridiculous.

 

[KirbyKaze]

tell me everything you know about the falcon matchup

Since you play a low tier, I'm going to assume you don't mind just abusing your best tools over and over again and almost without any variation at all (unless it's necessary) so we can just get right down to business.

Stand still, or duck. You're going to be very, very passive and let him make the first move. Getting antsy and attacking him recklessly gets you DD grabbed and then your face explodes.

Okay, so you're ducking or moving around in duck. When he attacks with Nair, enjoy the free grab and then make him sob uncontrollably for the 30 seconds you spend comboing the balls off him or tech chasing him or gimping him. If he attacks with Knee or Dair, you stuff them (if possible) with your tilt or aerial, or you move out of the way in any way you can and dodge them.

This matchup is boring at high level, especially in the neutral position because both characters suck at approaching. You're better at creeping towards him and cutting off space, however, so it's not a bad idea to do that until he feels the need to do something. It is difficult for Falcon to attack a patient Sheik that doesn't really commit. Your walk is very, very scary because your tilts are good and he's going to try really hard to make you sweat and tilt so he can DD grab it. Keep your cool, stay calm. It is extremely important to not get scared of him and fall for stupid intimidation tactics.

 

[Cosmo!]

When do you use needles? How often should I be shielding his approach? Never? sometimes?

 

[SonuvaBeach]

If you have a full set of needles and he is DDing recklessly you can just take the damage. If he is approaching somewhat often, you can opt to instead try to use them from a short hop or full hop to lead to grab --> death.

Reacting to his approaches was/is the hardest part of the matchup for me. In short, f-tilt beats Nair, knee, and D-air. If he is beating on your shield, and you think he is going to stomp, u-tilt is normally the best choice. If he approaches with N-air often you can either CC--> grab or WD back---> f-tilt, and go from there.

Against any good falcon, just don't commit to an approach. They will DD grab it, as that is the best thing they can do in the matchup.

It is difficult for Falcon to attack a patient Sheik that doesn't really commit. Your walk is very, very scary because your tilts are good and he's going to try really hard to make you sweat and tilt so he can DD grab it. Keep your cool, stay calm. It is extremely important to not get scared of him and fall for stupid intimidation tactics.

Best falcon advice at a higher level. Use sheik's tilts, but don't throw them out randomly. Make him approach.

 

[KirbyKaze]

When do you use needles? How often should I be shielding his approach? Never? sometimes?

Dashing into shield vs his Nair is okay (make him space bad, then grab him) and shielding a Stomp is okay. Knees should be dodged, though, as they give too much stun for you to be able to retaliate effectively. You can wait for a Gentleman and try to move after it if he Knees, but then that begs for easy mixups (ie. they don't Gentleman and grab or something).

Needles are tricky. Don't use them much. Make him think he has to approach sometimes if he blatantly camps across the stage or something, but otherwise they're just unnecessary lag.

 

[soap]

cosmo i wana play with you again.

i'll money match your link again, or zelda, ganon, tinkle, whatever.

i'll show u all my needle tricks too, its weird to explain, easier to show

 

[WHA?]

i got some questions

-what to do to avoid fox's shine>wavedash out of it>u-smash
does DIing away help? or DIing toward so that u dont get shined as far?

-whats the best way to get out of falco's pillaring?
my main problem is in the air........ so DI up or left/right?

also,
for fox/falco, when they do their drill>shine on ur shield, do i take action after the shine? (with nair OoS or grab)
i ask because i see ppl actually grab or nair oos after the drill, so is the timing for doing that hard?
or is it just safer to wait for the shine and then take action

 

[Cosmo!]

thanks dudes I beat all the falcons today

 

[nicaboy]

good **** to tec0 at socal!

 

[PEEF!]

Yeah good sh*t tec0.

How to edgeguard Falcon that can ledgetech? I find this harder than it should be, but I have no good answers. Ledgehop bair seems tough to sweetspot in many situations.

So falcon's grab goes over crouching Sheik? That raepz.

If I did this stuff, nobody would ever want to play me.

Who elses grab range goes over crouching Sheik?

 

[Cosmo!]

zelda's

 

[Lawrencelot]

Yeah good sh*t tec0.

How to edgeguard Falcon that can ledgetech? I find this harder than it should be, but I have no good answers. Ledgehop bair seems tough to sweetspot in many situations.

So falcon's grab goes over crouching Sheik? That raepz.

If I did this stuff, nobody would ever want to play me.

Who elses grab range goes over crouching Sheik?

Falcon's doesn't go over crouching sheik all the time, but sometimes it does. Ganon's grab always goes over crouching sheik (if they are on the same height). I think other tall characters like Peach and Marth also sometimes grab over crouching sheik.

 

[Winston]

peef I think it's fine if you don't sweetspot the ledgehop bair, because you can do it in a way so that you just grab the edge again. If the weak hit hits falcon he won't gain any height from it, so you can just keep doing it until you sweetspot it.

If falcon's coming in from high you should be able to just slap him with fair.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Yeah good sh*t tec0.

How to edgeguard Falcon that can ledgetech? I find this harder than it should be, but I have no good answers. Ledgehop bair seems tough to sweetspot in many situations.

So falcon's grab goes over crouching Sheik? That raepz.

If I did this stuff, nobody would ever want to play me.

Who elses grab range goes over crouching Sheik?

Anti-ledgetech:

Needle him until he recovers kind of low, then grab the edge. When he lands onstage do ledgehop Dair on him and then combo him back offstage. Rinse, lather, repeat as necessary. Or weak Bairs if he's at medium percent or they won't let him tech. You can also wait for him to get slightly above the stage and ledgehop Nair him back off.

Crouch > Grab?

Falcon's standing grab goes over Sheik's duck if he tries to max-range it (I think -- that's how it works with Marth's grab). The point of it is that it severely hinders what moves he can do on you from certain ranges, and gives you some obvious things to poke at him with.

 

[PEEF!]

So if he (and marth) can grab us sometimes, how much do we really gain from crouching alot?

I just can't see how a DDing falcon/marth/fox can be controlled consistently like...ever. Every time im gonna flip out and tilt then get DD grabbed.

Don't things change dramatically with platforms too?

 

[soap]

peef just calm down and don't throw out tilts.

if u are gona throw out anything, just make it a retreating sh autocancel bair and u will be relatively safe.

this just stuffs them and doesn't lead into much tho. be calm and find a way to space and grab

 

[Zoler]

So if he (and marth) can grab us sometimes, how much do we really gain from crouching alot?

I just can't see how a DDing falcon/marth/fox can be controlled consistently like...ever. Every time im gonna flip out and tilt then get DD grabbed.

Don't things change dramatically with platforms too?

I thought this too until very recently (this weekend) at a smash tourney I hosted. I played a lot and realized what I lacked. Spacing. Sheik is better defensive, than offensive is what I realized. Just spacing and waiting for them to come at you and do like wavedash back ftilt, cc grab etc is always better!

It's hard vs falco and campy foxes but easy and very doable vs marth and falcon! The best thing with playing passive is also they can never know when you will randomly throw out a dash attack or boostgrab. God sheik is so awesome :D

Happy spacing

 

[KirbyKaze]

So if he (and marth) can grab us sometimes, how much do we really gain from crouching alot?

I just can't see how a DDing falcon/marth/fox can be controlled consistently like...ever. Every time im gonna flip out and tilt then get DD grabbed.

Don't things change dramatically with platforms too?

If you duck and wait, it makes it a pain for them to land aerials on you because they have to aim at your body, when your leg sticks out 2 body-lengths further than your body. They also wind up having to come very far into your space to get grabs, which means you can move out of that position (WD, etc.) and then prey on their mistake. It basically isolates the places where they can attack and expect to hit you to a very, very small space. And you can take advantage of this.

It doesn't really control them in the sense that it auto-***** them and makes them super duper easy to hit all the time, every time, and they can do nothing about it. Functionally their game is the same, they just have a smaller target to hit, a smaller space they can effectively attack (and Falcon has trouble effectively attacking a small space; see Falcon vs crouching Jigglypuff). It makes approaching more difficult for them than usual (not that they will approach very often, but if you don't approach, they eventually have to).

You still have to move from this position and stuff, and space. It doesn't auto-correct everything. It's just a good thing to do.

I wouldn't advise doing such heavy crouch against Marth because he has cheat sword moves. I'd just say move around a lot and don't approach and sometimes tilt him if he attacks from the air with bad spacing. And do SH aerials if you're conveniently spaced for them.

 

[PEEF!]

So where is crouch useful for Marth?

Where is the best place to set up your "camp" on a given stage? On FD I assume it hardly matters, but what about the plat stages?

Sorry for the questions, but I like t3h details.

 

[WHA?]

i got some questions

-what to do to avoid fox's shine>wavedash out of it>u-smash
does DIing away help? or DIing toward so that u dont get shined as far?

-whats the best way to get out of falco's pillaring?
my main problem is in the air........ so DI up or left/right?

also,
for fox/falco, when they do their drill>shine on ur shield, do i take action after the shine? (with nair OoS or grab)
i ask because i see ppl actually grab or nair oos after the drill, so is the timing for doing that hard?
or is it just safer to wait for the shine and then take action


anyone got input on my q's???
or are they stupid questions?

 

[KirbyKaze]

So where is crouch useful for Marth?

Where is the best place to set up your "camp" on a given stage? On FD I assume it hardly matters, but what about the plat stages?

Sorry for the questions, but I like t3h details.

Mostly it just keeps him from popping you up and lets you get some free grabs or tilts sometimes if he tries to do Fairs and other nonsense on you.

Setting up camp? I dunno. Under a platform is usually good. Being on the platform is fine if it's like Jigglypuff or Ice Climbers or something.

 

[rpgfighter]

How helpful is the C stick to sheik? Like is it required that I use it or does it not really matter if I use it or not? Because I find myself never using the C stick at all.

 

[Teczer0]

How helpful is the C stick to sheik? Like is it required that I use it or does it not really matter if I use it or not? Because I find myself never using the C stick at all.

Its useful for your movement. For example, maybe you'd like to move forward completely and do a dair for some random reason. But you don't wanna fast fall it (Maybe to tech chase with onto platforms)

Well if you press down and A you might fast fall by mistake.

Things like that are reasons to use the c-stick. You don't necessarily have to though I suppose.

zelda's

Trying to be a zelda/sheik main? Thats sneaky

But pretty awesome

 

[soap]

i used to not cstick, then i started, and i love it. makes spacing easier imo, which is pretty important

drephen doesn't cstick, except for dsmash.

 

[Cosmo!]

Trying to be a zelda/sheik main? Thats sneaky

But pretty awesome

yea its awesome, i never lose double blinds or counterpicks
my sheik is really just for 2 characters though, sheik and falcon

 

[Lordydennek]

I just saw that the Sheik puff mu is now in puffs favor.

wtf. I think its about even actually. if youre losing it play campy, expect to lose on their counterpick.

seriously, needles really mess her up. and you can be sneaky with them too. i think than you should ban brinstar against her. she can f u up by floating under platforms and the stage. idk. what do you guys think?

 

[DJRome]

lol needles don't touch jiggs. jiggs crouch > sheik.

 

[SonuvaBeach]

I just saw that the Sheik puff mu is now in puffs favor.

wtf. I think its about even actually. if youre losing it play campy, expect to lose on their counterpick.

seriously, needles really mess her up. and you can be sneaky with them too. i think than you should ban brinstar against her. she can f u up by floating under platforms and the stage. idk. what do you guys think?

lol needles don't touch jiggs. jiggs crouch > sheik.

This ^.

Needles aren't that helpful in the matchup. Unless you have a full set you can't even rely on them for needle --> grab.

Jiggs is the only matchup where I just play Fox now. After playing Raistlyn at pound4 and seeing just how hard Jiggs can punish Sheik..I'd rather just play Fox.

 

[pockyD]

wtf? needles are incredibly useful vs puff

they aren't very 'effective' but anything you can use to manipulate puff, especially from outside her zone, is super useful

 

[TLMSheikant]

Guys, help. I suck vs nairs. Especially Doc's and Fox's. Toooo much priority. What should I do against them? Ive tried ftilting but to no avail.

 

[demonictoonlink]

Shield them.

 

[SonuvaBeach]

wtf? needles are incredibly useful vs puff

they aren't very 'effective' but anything you can use to manipulate puff, especially from outside her zone, is super useful

Yeah I agree...simply just meant that they aren't nearly as useful as they are vs a lot of the cast. I tend to exaggerate my posts. If sheik didn't have needles vs Puff then it would really be game over for her.

@TLM - KK is your man for Fox nair advice. But I'd say don't try to trade with it, WD back and use your superior spacing. Retreating fairs are also good for beating nair. Or shield and wait for your opening to nair or WD out.

 

[soap]

if they duck, do sh needles. puff doesn't like disappear or anything

 

[TLMSheikant]

Yeah I agree...simply just meant that they aren't nearly as useful as they are vs a lot of the cast. I tend to exaggerate my posts. If sheik didn't have needles vs Puff then it would really be game over for her.

@TLM - KK is your man for Fox nair advice. But I'd say don't try to trade with it, WD back and use your superior spacing. Retreating fairs are also good for beating nair. Or shield and wait for your opening to nair or WD out.

I tried that too. Only way I seem to beat it is if I back air. If I wavedash back he still reaches me because of his momentum. If I shield it, its a guessing game. I dont like dealing with those. :/

 

[DJRome]

the only way to play sheik is to react. thus, you have to see how fox is coming. if the nair is going behind you, go forward, cc and turn around into a ftilt or grab as you see fit. if he goes in front of you wd back and do the same

 

[soap]

the only way to play sheik is to react.

don't limit yourself

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

hey how does sheik do vs peach? Because I hate peach soooooo much as pichu or anyone freakin fair to d-smash is half a freakin stock I swear I would like to be F***ing chain thrown by some uber gay sheik then get hit by peach's ******** combos that do to much and are near impossible to punish at least you can punish a missed grab. Please don't counter pick me with peach I prefer fighting sheik i'm learning the match-up pretty well now.

but yeah how does sheik do vs peach I would go as marth/fox but sheik is funner.

skillz tier list
sheik
peach

 

[soap]

peach? sheik does... better than pichu!

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

I really how so I hate everything about peach other than when she wins and goes awwww did I win? that really doesn't bug me, but everything about peach P***s me off.

any advice if I wanted to CP as sheik cause I clearly can't go ice climbers that would be twice as gay.
stage info or anything would be amazing.