Q&A Sheik Strategy & QnA

[omgwtfToph]

You might as well just charge needles honestly, if you want to bait an approach lol. Charged needles are so ****ing good for a lot of things.

 

[TaFoKiNtS]

Do not go on platforms, it's a terrible position for you. It's like when you're trapped on a small raft with a bunch of pirahnas and shark jumping trying to eat you.

You can definitely charge when far away, but be prepared to react if he approaches you with a running fullhop. I don't like being too liberal in storing needles at this point because it locks you into a stationary position, waiting for Falcon to unleash a flury of attacks on you.

 

[TaFoKiNtS]

As for playing defensively (in general), you need a gameplan on what you're going to do or look for.

Against faster characters, they will eventually overwhelm you and hit you with something (it's inevitable) into a combo. You can't simply play defensive and let them unleash an onslaught of attacks, while you're running away/rolling/spot dodging/shielding.

Why?
Even if you guess correctly, you aren't dealing any damage. If you guess wrong, you will take a crap-ton of damage. It's just negative expected value. Either you break even or take damage.

Going back to playing against Falcon.
When I'm playing back against Falcon's options, I'm looking for the following opportunities:

1. Maneuvering horizontally to make Falcon miss-space an aerial
- I'll try to pin-point landing points of falcon, and I'll WD-in, walk forward to mispace and get the following attacks:
Shield Grab, jab, d-tilt, f-tilt, depending how they miss-space
2. The bailout (AKA gentlemen)
- This is more of a street fighter mindset, but I look at jab-strings and observe what they will do. Many Sheiks will panic when Falcon aerials --> gentlemen. You can abuse this pattern by simply not doing anything and shielding, then grabbing at the end of gentlemen. If they mix it up and try to do jab --> grab, then I will jab to interrupt into f-tilt and get my opportunity
3. Zone aerial
- This is EXTREMELY important to playing against a dash-dancing Falcon. By zoning, you are doing safe, virtually unpunishable aerials to cover different spaces between you and Falcon, this often means tilting at certain spots, fairing an empty portion of the stage to keep Falcon in check. I wish I had more concrete examples in video form. Some very good examples of this include: runaway Fair if you anticipate an incoming nair. Pre-emptive f-tilt if they are SH attacking you.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Charging needles is more effective than throwing them, ironically


edit- new page lolll

 

[The Great Gonzales]

how do sheiks in general approach Fox, i feel that his approach is ****ign godlike, so you cant really play defensive to keep him out. However if you play aggressive theres multple amount of things that you can eat like a nair>shine>upsmash or drill>shine>upsmash. I feel its extremely difficult to approach fox safely, yet if your playing defense its only a matter of time till you eat somethign into shine into a ******** amount of damage.

Heres a macth in wich i had almost no idea on how to approach http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsJhYshYkFw&feature=youtu.be

P.S. I realize i dont tech chase well but im old im my reaction speed is **** >_<

 

[TaFoKiNtS]

It's difficult to say how to play the Fox matchup. Kirbykaze could write a novel and it still wouldn't encompass everything that is required in the matchup.

General mindset
1. You are not necessarily looking for a hard approach that leads to an instant hit. The key to winning the approach is to limit Fox's options and then make the necessary read. The best analogy I can give is this:

Imagine a teacher giving you a multiple choice test with answer choices a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j.
You can get context clues (spacing) within the question to reduce some choices that definitely could not be correct, eliminating options d,e,f,g,h,i

Now you're left with 5 possibilities: a,b,c,d,j. To eliminate some more options, you look a prior history (mind games) to see what they won't/will do. This leaves you with answer choices a,b,j. Now ask yourself what is the best move/move combinations that can cover all 3 options that are left in the given situation?

To relate this back to melee, you can't simply just walk up to Fox and fair/dash attack/grab for free. You have to pin him down and that takes multiple steps to do. Some key things I try to bait include:

1. overeager jumps (I will space a bair/fair/f tilt to punish this),
2. nairs (wd back --> ftilt, CC d-smash),
3. bad dash dancing (move forward and limit his space and force a shield),
4. FH Drills (I will jump backwards bair, and adjust horizontal spacing to force a bad drill)
5. Double jumps (hover underneath and hit with an aerial)
6. Spot dodging (D-smash)
7. excessive shielding (shield pokes, f-smash hehe, eventually grabs)

To sum it up (i'm sorry if this makes NO sense), I try to force non-neutral positions in which they have to do something risky. In a seemingly neutral position, play attrition and try to get good grounding. Don't over-commit to tilts, play the ground game, and watch for tendencies.

If it seems like you are getting hit excessively in the matchup, I suggest you record the video. It is more often than not that the Fox has picked up vulnerabilities and predictable reactions from your side. I take notes of why I get hit.

For example, I was noticing the following after playing HMW

I was getting hit by...
1. Full hop double jump aerials
2. Jab --> PAUSE --> grabs
3. DD --> grabs
4. Full hop Bairs (when i'm in the air)

I asked myself why and how did I get into those situations
1. I was getting baited hard by HMW's short hop aerials. I would think that he would jump in, but he would bait me with a 2nd jump into my over commited D-Smash, grab, dash attack. To stop this, I will continue dashing to set up a good position beneath Fox but wait for the 2nd jump
2. HMW was exploiting my anti-shield pressure game. He knew I would wait for an aerial and go for a nair OOS. To counter this, he would mix up his attack rhythm and make me overcommit to shielding and punish me
3. A classic counter to sheik. HMW would dash dance to bait me to commit to a perceived vulnerability of Fox's ground range. He would DD outside of my range, baiting a dash attack, and then grab me afterwards. I've been changed this by committing less to dash attacking and being okay with running forward without necessarily attacking and waiting to react to something different.
4. HMW would make me very vulnerable when I'm recovering but would anticipate my second jump perfectly and hit me and kill me at early %s. This is a hard read, which I need to mitigate by mixing up my high/low recoveries better.

Nonetheless, let me know if you have any specific questions, but I hope to give you some tools to help self-analyze the matchup

PS: I'll watch your video when I get a chance at home.

 

[Nedved]

I love your posts Tafokints. There are very useful IMO. It does make sense btw.

I find out a great problem in my game : I always have some lag after i do an action. It's like i'm playing like :
Shffl AFA - PAUSE - Dash Dance to Dash Attack - PAUSE - WD - PAUSE - Dash again
(some random actions lol, didn't think about anything).
It comes to some practice lacking and technical issues. Do you have any hard timing move so I can train ? I'm working on this issues right now cause I have so much problem and I think i would be way better if this lag doesn't exist (it's like i don't LCancel :/)

Also, what are the best options after a Shffl AFA on a Shield ? I saw Ice going for Utilt, other people goes for Jab, DashDance or another Fair. What should make me choose an option instead on another ? I suppose its character dependant, but what more ?

 

[TaFoKiNtS]

It is character dependent. A great, but unnecessary training tool, was to play and watch Street Fighter 4.

In Street Fighter 4,
Jump-ins into mixup jab strings are really important to learn. There are so many mind games that are implemented in the close-up footsies game that is emphasized heavily in SF4, but under-utilized in Melee.

To answer your question, character-dependency and player-dependency are two paradigms that people use to determine what movesets are to be used. Being a WC player, I'm more inclined to answer the shield pressure response game in terms of reads of the player. A more standard Sheik (Tope, KK, M2K) will give you an answer that addresses character vulnerabilities as opposed to player tendencies. Character vulnerabilities will give you a more consistent gameplan and it is something I'm still wrapping my head around.

To answer your question specifically. I ask myself the following questions:

1. How big is their shield?
2. How good is the character's OOS game?
3. Horizontally, what is my distance after I land?
4. What are my opponent's natural tendencies after the fair?
5. What % is my opponent at?
6. Is my opponent facing me?

To address why:
1. Depending on shield size, I can simply poke around the shield with jabs, d-tilts, and get a hit. If my opponent knows this as well, they are more inclined to do a "hard" escape such as roll or jump, and I'm prepared to react to this.
2. If my opponent has a great OOS game (Peach, fox, Puff), then I am less inclined to do something with lag on shield stun. If not, then it greatly helps in my mind games. Against Falcon, I can assume that they have their crappy OOS aerials that are laggy such as Dair, but most of the time, they are forced to roll or stay in shield. So I might do Fair --> jab once, then either grab or run to where I think they will roll and punish it.
3. This is the most important aspect. The horizontal distance I have after the Fair will determine if I can f-tilt, d-tilt, or jab safely without risking getting shield grabbed. I think you should have a good idea of safe horizontal distances, but if you want me to elaborate I can.
4. Earlier in matches, I will Fair and simply wait to see what natural reactions I see. You can also go Amsah style and spam Fair to induce conditioning. It's a cyclical process of conditioning that is important for high level play. By conditioning your opponent early with a slew of safe-fairs, they are forced to shield it. From there, you can play with your opponents head and go for a fair --> grab of fair --> chase --> grab after opponent's roll. Once they start catching on and start spot dodging or w/e, you can resume Fair --> Fair or Fair --> f-tilt.
5.% is also very important. at lower %s, I'm more inclined to aim for Fairs, Bairs, well spaced d-tilts, d-smash, and grabs. An other tilt is VERY risky and will often result in you getting grabbed or dsmashed by certain characters.
6. Lastly, this is important because it also determines whether you can get shield grabbed and spacing options.

Overall, I simply try to picture what is the safest maneuver for my opponent to get out of Fair shield pressure and then I mix up safe maneuvers and hard reads to counter my opponent's potential safe recovers (rolls, spot dodge, jump OOS)

 

[Nedved]

Thank you^^
I generally don't think that much about the question, but recently i'm starting to think I should start looking for habit and try conditionning, so your help is very useful.
I know safe distances well (even if I have hard time to space well) but some characters (Link or Marth for exemple) doesn't car how far away you are from them because they have a ridiculous grab. Is it a good option to let them think that sheildgrabing is a good option, then jab them when they go for the shieldgrab and punish them ? Is F-tilt an option or is it too laggy to use it ?

During the week i'm going to play an hard session, record few matches and analyzed them, since i will try to implement all of this in my gameplay. thank you^^

 

[TaFoKiNtS]

Against Marth, precision spacing and timing are important.

You can hit Marth with the tip of your F-tilt and not get grabbed, I think.

If you've conditioned Marth to shield or CC and wait for you to aerial. Then just spam grab after your first aerial. Marth has a really limited OOS game. When you start spamming grab and he catches on, you can start baiting spot dodges and rolls and punish them severely. The key thing is that if you haven't pinned Marth down, you need to pin him down or keep moving. Marth thrives on out maneuvering you and causing you to freeze up.

I am weird and almost Drephen-like in this matchup. I'll play a weird R-P-S game of down smashing and grabbing. I will cycle through these and abuse either one of these attacks until my opponent catches on. Then, I'll switch to the alternate and abuse it. Rinse and repeat...

Of course, this isn't safe against top tier marths. As for them, I don't have a clue because their movement is so precise. I am looking for answers.

 

[The Great Gonzales]

It's difficult to say how to play the Fox matchup. Kirbykaze could write a novel and it still wouldn't encompass everything that is required in the matchup.

General mindset
1. You are not necessarily looking for a hard approach that leads to an instant hit. The key to winning the approach is to limit Fox's options and then make the necessary read. The best analogy I can give is this:

Imagine a teacher giving you a multiple choice test with answer choices a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j.
You can get context clues (spacing) within the question to reduce some choices that definitely could not be correct, eliminating options d,e,f,g,h,i

Now you're left with 5 possibilities: a,b,c,d,j. To eliminate some more options, you look a prior history (mind games) to see what they won't/will do. This leaves you with answer choices a,b,j. Now ask yourself what is the best move/move combinations that can cover all 3 options that are left in the given situation?

To relate this back to melee, you can't simply just walk up to Fox and fair/dash attack/grab for free. You have to pin him down and that takes multiple steps to do. Some key things I try to bait include:

1. overeager jumps (I will space a bair/fair/f tilt to punish this),
2. nairs (wd back --> ftilt, CC d-smash),
3. bad dash dancing (move forward and limit his space and force a shield),
4. FH Drills (I will jump backwards bair, and adjust horizontal spacing to force a bad drill)
5. Double jumps (hover underneath and hit with an aerial)
6. Spot dodging (D-smash)
7. excessive shielding (shield pokes, f-smash hehe, eventually grabs)

To sum it up (i'm sorry if this makes NO sense), I try to force non-neutral positions in which they have to do something risky. In a seemingly neutral position, play attrition and try to get good grounding. Don't over-commit to tilts, play the ground game, and watch for tendencies.

If it seems like you are getting hit excessively in the matchup, I suggest you record the video. It is more often than not that the Fox has picked up vulnerabilities and predictable reactions from your side. I take notes of why I get hit.

For example, I was noticing the following after playing HMW

I was getting hit by...
1. Full hop double jump aerials
2. Jab --> PAUSE --> grabs
3. DD --> grabs
4. Full hop Bairs (when i'm in the air)

I asked myself why and how did I get into those situations
1. I was getting baited hard by HMW's short hop aerials. I would think that he would jump in, but he would bait me with a 2nd jump into my over commited D-Smash, grab, dash attack. To stop this, I will continue dashing to set up a good position beneath Fox but wait for the 2nd jump
2. HMW was exploiting my anti-shield pressure game. He knew I would wait for an aerial and go for a nair OOS. To counter this, he would mix up his attack rhythm and make me overcommit to shielding and punish me
3. A classic counter to sheik. HMW would dash dance to bait me to commit to a perceived vulnerability of Fox's ground range. He would DD outside of my range, baiting a dash attack, and then grab me afterwards. I've been changed this by committing less to dash attacking and being okay with running forward without necessarily attacking and waiting to react to something different.
4. HMW would make me very vulnerable when I'm recovering but would anticipate my second jump perfectly and hit me and kill me at early %s. This is a hard read, which I need to mitigate by mixing up my high/low recoveries better.

Nonetheless, let me know if you have any specific questions, but I hope to give you some tools to help self-analyze the matchup

PS: I'll watch your video when I get a chance at home.

i know exactly what your talking about, im a figthing game player mainly. I play smash cause its fun and i like it, but sometimes i have a hard time figuring out my options in a macth-up since the game is so dam fast >_<

 

[TaFoKiNtS]

Also, if you want completely objective advice, I suggest talking to shadrach kobango, Vyse0wnz on youtube. I know that some people have negative feelings towards him, but his advice and insight are spot-on the vast majority of the time.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

TaFo is legit

I want a rematch dude

 

[TaFoKiNtS]

haha thanks! <3.

What region were you from again?

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

(location)

Chicago scene. Didn't you go to a MI tournament a while back? I think you were the sheik player in my losers swiss pool with moose and shady

 

[TaFoKiNtS]

I did go to Bighouse, but I was in the pool with Dart actually.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Ice vs Over was pretty cool.

PAL still sucks.

 

[Nedved]

Ice vs Over was pretty cool.

PAL still sucks.

I wouldn't say PAL sucks for dittos. It's just harder cause grab won't lead to kill (Dittos with CG are absurd).
For every other MU... :/

 

[KirbyKaze]

Fox's recovery looks so bad in PAL

 

[Beat!]

It kinda is.

 

[stelzig]

It deserves to be that bad!

 

[Nedved]

PAL Fox is just less broken. PAL Sheik too

 

[lord karn]

Thank you^^
I generally don't think that much about the question, but recently i'm starting to think I should start looking for habit and try conditionning, so your help is very useful.
I know safe distances well (even if I have hard time to space well) but some characters (Link or Marth for exemple) doesn't car how far away you are from them because they have a ridiculous grab. Is it a good option to let them think that sheildgrabing is a good option, then jab them when they go for the shieldgrab and punish them ? Is F-tilt an option or is it too laggy to use it ?

During the week i'm going to play an hard session, record few matches and analyzed them, since i will try to implement all of this in my gameplay. thank you^^

Learning to boost-grab with Sheik is pretty important in the marth matchup. Usually his range makes getting a grab on him really hard, but if you boost-grab you can get him after almost any aerial. This is probably a more defensive style vs. marth than tafo is suggesting, but you need to condition marth into doing aerials.You do this by not staying on the ground. Generally marths will try to grab you if you are staying on the ground, or do other defensive maneuvers. If you space fairs, or shoot needles and run away on platforms, the marth won't be able to grab and then will start trying to hit you with aerials. When he starts using aerials, stick to the ground and you can boost-grab in and get him during the lag of his aerials (it works to some extent with normal grab, but you have to be way more precise).

The reason getting grabs on marth is so important is basically what you were worried about originally. Marth can crouch cancel and grab your aerials, as well as threaten shield grab to a greater extent. Not only do grabs avoid these problems, but sheik has ridiculously good grab combos on marth. KK described those to a much greater extent in some older post, so I won't really get into that (and I suck at comboing anyways).

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I did go to Bighouse, but I was in the pool with Dart actually.

No before that... I think it was at Good ***** Strafford or maybe SWEET IV/V

 

[Jolteon]

I think Fox's recovery in PAL is good, it's a lot better in NTSC though.

 

[Violence]

So... how the hell do you shino stall? I was messing around with it last night and I either double jump too high and lose invincibility, or I end the teleport too low don't regrab.

What do you use to let go? Away? Down? Cstick? How much double jump? None?

What exactly are the inputs, I'm really confused...

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

down
immediately upb (ideally, no double jump)
hold down
release to neutral
repeat

 

[Violence]

I always go too low when I do that... am I too slow on the down up initial motion?

 

[SonuvaBeach]

I always go too low when I do that... am I too slow on the down up initial motion?

Yes, it is a very quick motion. Down --> up-b immediately.

*Good Falcon Advice*

Thanks TaFo. After reading all this advice, as well as Dope and Shady calling out exactly what I should be doing to punish things (KK at pound4 style), I feel I'm on the cusp of hitting a new plateau. Starting to be more patient and wait for my openings, instead of just throwing out attacks.

Against Marth, precision spacing and timing are important.

You can hit Marth with the tip of your F-tilt and not get grabbed, I think.

If you've conditioned Marth to shield or CC and wait for you to aerial. Then just spam grab after your first aerial. Marth has a really limited OOS game. When you start spamming grab and he catches on, you can start baiting spot dodges and rolls and punish them severely. The key thing is that if you haven't pinned Marth down, you need to pin him down or keep moving. Marth thrives on out maneuvering you and causing you to freeze up.

I am weird and almost Drephen-like in this matchup. I'll play a weird R-P-S game of down smashing and grabbing. I will cycle through these and abuse either one of these attacks until my opponent catches on. Then, I'll switch to the alternate and abuse it. Rinse and repeat...

Of course, this isn't safe against top tier marths. As for them, I don't have a clue because their movement is so precise. I am looking for answers.

This style of play vs marth works and is easiest, but I am starting to like playing it a bit differently as Shady has hit a new level and a RPS style no longer is efficient enough in the matchup. KK has made some really good posts as to how to play the matchup in the past that stuck in my head.

Grabbing more often instead of hitting their shield and giving them and opening out has been a major change I've made. Marth isn't as scary if you aren't running into his fairs. If he is fairing, let him. If he is doing it in place or fading away, it is too hard to punish so I charge needles or establish a good position. The needles will give him damage for not approaching. If he is a good distance away fairing, full hop charging needles is good, as he can't react in time to get under you and if he tries he gets needled or fair'd.

Marth can't approach with fair or any aerial safely it seems, so abuse that. His options are limited to dash attack, grab, and d-tilt/fsmash. I've starting crouch canceling his d-tilt for free dash attacks, punishing the obvious grabs, and shielding or running away from the f-smash and dash attack for free punishes.

It is still a hard matchup against a good marth, but once I realized how I could punish all his options it became easier.

I did go to Bighouse, but I was in the pool with Dart actually.

Clearly you are more experienced in the Falcon matchup, and I likely am in the Marth matchup since Shady mains him. You're advice helped quite a bit in the matchup. I can see why you beat the people you did at Big House. Now we just gotta get a bit more consistent so we can beat the best. Also, how'd you do against Dart's marth? He's pretty good vs sheik.

 

[TaFoKiNtS]

I lost to Dart 2-0. I think videos are on youtube. He's very solid, but I noticed he gets fatigued at the later portions of matches. I had warm-up johns as I was making many technical errors such as jumping instead of JC-grabbing in many instances which was frustrating, but nonetheless he's really good.

On a good day, I might have a shot of beating him, but I think he'll beat me > 75% of the time.

Thanks for the advice. For the D-tilt CC, until what % can I get that off?

A tough Marth for me is one that can alternate Fair timings and not have a set pattern. This makes it very hard for me to find openings, any advice in this situation or do I just settle for charging needles/ try to trade with a f-tilt?

 

[L__]

i got a question about jc grabbing

if i jump and grab on the same frame which one takes priority?

i ask cuz lately i've been missing a lot of jc grabs due to lack of practicing and i get the lame dash grab animation

for some reason thats the only thing that seems to get worse for me without practice lOl

yet i can still do whacky stuff like double shine pressure with spacies

also what stages do you guys like vs falco

cuz that guy is really hard to hit when he's in the groove and even when he isnt hes annoying to deal with in general

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

If you press the inputs on the same frame, only 1 of them will occur. I haven't really looked into which buttons take priority, though.

 

[L__]

strongbad

magus

do they namesearch?

who else does frame data stuff

ugh

i dont wanna use the search bar

 

[Violence]

Wait, why does it matter which one takes priority?

If the grab takes priority, you dash grab, and if the jump takes priority, you're going to jump. You won't jc grab because you need to input grab on your knee bend jump startup frames, not your dash frames, and as far as I know, grabbing has no buffer...

So I dunno which takes priority but it doesn't sound like you want to do either one, right?

 

[L__]

[glow]it doesn't have any meaning aside from satiating my curiosity[/glow]

 

[Violence]

damn, I can't argue with glowing text...

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I'd look it up for you, but my desktop has been broken for a month or so and I can't do simple dolphin things. I'm on my ubuntu laptop

 

[Kaffei]

i got a question about jc grabbing

if i jump and grab on the same frame which one takes priority?

i ask cuz lately i've been missing a lot of jc grabs due to lack of practicing and i get the lame dash grab animation

for some reason thats the only thing that seems to get worse for me without practice lOl

yet i can still do whacky stuff like double shine pressure with spacies

also what stages do you guys like vs falco

cuz that guy is really hard to hit when he's in the groove and even when he isnt hes annoying to deal with in general

Just hit X first then Z really fast it's really ez

 

[SonuvaBeach]

I lost to Dart 2-0. I think videos are on youtube. He's very solid, but I noticed he gets fatigued at the later portions of matches. I had warm-up johns as I was making many technical errors such as jumping instead of JC-grabbing in many instances which was frustrating, but nonetheless he's really good.

On a good day, I might have a shot of beating him, but I think he'll beat me > 75% of the time.

Yeah - I often have similar issues. Last tournament was good though, just played all day and refused to stop. Solved that problem ha.

Thanks for the advice. For the D-tilt CC, until what % can I get that off?

I am not sure exactly, but in the session we had yesterday I believe I CC'd it has high as 140%. I don't know the exact percents, KirbyKaze may though. I can say that it isn't as good when the Marth is at lower percents, because he can CC your dash attack back and punish your lag. After that though, it becomes real boss. I was calling out "every time you d-tilt, I'll kill you" all of our session yesterday when I started doing it ha.

A tough Marth for me is one that can alternate Fair timings and not have a set pattern. This makes it very hard for me to find openings, any advice in this situation or do I just settle for charging needles/ try to trade with a f-tilt?

In all honesty, I don't. Again, Kirbykaze may be able to step in here and tell us what's up. Shady is not a very air-heavy marth. I can say though that if he full hops, get under him obviously. If he is short hopping you can punish him if he is coming forward, but if not it is very hard to punish. Although settling for needles sucks, if he is fairing like that, I'd be very pleased to run away a tiny bit and full hop turnaround needle charge at the start of his jump. Experiment with throwing off his spacing when he is fairing and see what you can do. Also don't forget you can punish bad spacing with d-tilt and fair of course.

One of the things that helped me most in the matchup was to stop trying to find openings in his fair's/approaching his dashdance. I pressure him by running in --> WD back, and fox trotting outside his range until he is forced to approach or do...anything. I think about staying close enough to punish a mistake with dashattack or boost grab, while staying far enough away to react to dashattack/grab/fsmash.

 

[odinNJ]

Can someone post a vid in which someone gets hurt by sheiks needles while they are on the ground? I feel like the needles stuck in the ground are unexplored