Q&A Sheik Strategy & QnA

[Sempai]

It took a while, but after watching Plup's Sheik vs Hbox, I've been won over that the Sheik-Puff matchup is about even.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CfelJsewpA

God but the punishs for puff are so much harder, reminds me of marth vs fox in a sense
But if played correctly Sheik can make life for puff neutral game-wise pretty rough with bairs and needles.

Sheik lands on stage with Up-B = death
Marth gets a grab on fox = potential death

 

[Eonn]

Yeah tech chasing will always be the best choice since you can tech chase up to ridiculous percents when done correctly. However you can cover DI in/no DI tech in place with an up tilt to regrab assuming they dont SDI out of the up tilt. If they miss tech/tech in place you can up smash but if they catch onto this falco (idk about fox) and buffer spot dodge and dodge the up smash completely. If they tech away you can dash attack but if they crouch cancel your dash attack, they can just shine or grab you for free.

So yeah...
DI in tech in place = Up tilt regrab
No DI no tech/tech in place = Up smash
Tech roll = Dash attack

Those are the basic flowchart that I use if you cant tech chase but most of the options have easy ways to get out of so its always better to regrab when possible.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. How long does it generally take to get consistent at regrabs? I've spent several hours practicing in 20XX but my reactions are nowhere near fast enough and half the time I just have to try and guess where they will go. I can never react to the failed tech either.

 

[Sempai]

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. How long does it generally take to get consistent at regrabs? I've spent several hours practicing in 20XX but my reactions are nowhere near fast enough and half the time I just have to try and guess where they will go. I can never react to the failed tech either.

Awhile lol, its a pretty tight timing. But try to never guess and always work on reacting, like any skill only perfect practice will get better. If you start trying to read, well, good luck with that.

In regards to the missed tech, if you see the green flash (when they hit the ground), hit the a button.

 

[Twunt]

So I'm having some troubles with the Falco matchup, and I believe it is mainly due to the following three factors. Any help on these topics or any other advice would be greatly appreciated.

1. I'm dropping techchases at lower percents due largely to spotdodging. If the Falco has time to spotdodge immediately after teching - does it mean I was a little late? It typically causes me to whiff my grab attempt, and the Falco will shine immediately after the spotdodge even if I try to adapt and wait it out. Am I just getting there a bit late? Or is there some vulnerability between the spotdodge invincibility and shine where I should be getting the grab in?

2. I'm getting comboed a lot - generally short/medium length combos (not zero-deathed) but pretty often and it really adds up. Typically at low percents I'll get comboed by some braindead utilt spam (like 3-4 utilts in a row..). After I have some damage I'll mainly eat several shine > dair > shine > dair ... etc combos until I have enough damage to die from a random smash, bair, etc. Is there a good way to DI, tech, or anything to avoid these types of combos? Any special way of utilizing platforms/lack of platforms to avoid this?

3. I'm not edgeguarding as well as I think I could. I feel like I'm pretty strong at edgeguarding when the bird is forced to up+b (below stage, distance, etc) because I have time to react, go out there and bair/fair/nair. However when he chooses to recover with a quick double jump to side+b (either on-stage or sweetspotted) I can never seem to punish it. I try and run off, double jump nair or just SH nair from stage but I never seem to get it quite right. I usually end up spiked by the side+b or just getting hit by it. Is there some trick to this that would help me be more consistent? Just need to react faster to the option?

Thanks in advance

 

[ComeT____]

ROFL @ at her short hop sucking. you won't be very good if you can't short hop.

you don't chainthrow fast fallers, you tech chase. basically dthrow, and your wd will depend on their DI. If they don't DI, waveddash back. If they DI forward, wd forward. etc. i don't dash grab my tech chasing, I just jump cancel grab, though many sheiks do dash grab.

wd is extremely important for spacing. spacing is one of the most important things in the game, so yes, use it.

I may not be one of the best Sheiks but I am pretty knowledgeable and active, so I'll clean up any stupid **** people say.

True

 

[ComeT____]

Chain grab and Tech Chase

 

[Sempai]

Chain grab and Tech Chase

Master these, you just have to nowadays, especially the tech chase on FFs. Chain grabs are a lot easier.

 

[Icyo]

Is it common knowledge that Sheik keeps her needles if you lose your stock as Zelda? Just tested this today so I'm not sure if it has been discovered already.

 

[snapcaster]

Yes, I think against some characters like puff and peach it's not bad to turn into Zelda if you're about to die to maintain your full needle charge if you have one

 

[silentSWAG]

Keep this alive people. Heres something to talk about approaching with spaced tilits. Like walk up and ftilt spaced

 

[Eonn]

Keep this alive people. Heres something to talk about approaching with spaced tilits. Like walk up and ftilt spaced

Could be useful against floating Peach to knock them out, or WD forward ftilt to catch a dash back against Marth or others?

Don't think this would be a good idea against spacies or at low percents though.

 

[Napps]

any tips on how to shield drop more efficiently? Or should I just grind it out and stop being a wennie?

 

[BuddingtonDa3rd]

Just picked up Sheik and was wondering is it uncommon for sheik players to have an in game tag above there name for possible unknowing mixups for her recovery? or if it'll matter to much for me to just not have an ingame tag.

 

[moogle]

any tips on how to shield drop more efficiently? Or should I just grind it out and stop being a wennie?

This video by Victra helped me the most: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsl03HJ_LTU

The biggest key is to already be holding left or right by the time your shield pops up. Once you're doing that, then step 2 is to swing the stick 45 degrees down to the diagonal down-left or down-right notch. It takes a little finesse to move the stick exactly to the notch, without going past it.

Just picked up Sheik and was wondering is it uncommon for sheik players to have an in game tag above there name for possible unknowing mixups for her recovery? or if it'll matter to much for me to just not have an ingame tag.

I wouldn't ever play with a tag as Sheik. It's hard enough to get back to the stage at high percent, as is.

Though I hear that 20xx Tournament Edition will fix this little problem. Look in the General Changes section on that 20xx page.

 

[Deleted member]

Hello,i'm new to Melee.
I'm a Smash 4 (Sheik) and Brawl (Meta Knight) and i would like to know if it's a good idea to play Sheik in Melee.
But i don't want to mess up my Smash 4 Sheik.

If yes,what are the main things to practice ?
Thanks !

 

[Raize]

Sheik is definitely a good character to play in Melee especially if you don't know much tech skill. I have no idea what the differences between Smash 4 and Melee Sheik are, so i can't help with that. If they are very different then you should probably pick some other top tier if you really want to keep your Smash 4 sheik.

 

[Laudandus]

You seem like you are picking characters who are good for winning.

Fox is good for winning.

I recommend Fox.

 

[Deleted member]

You seem like you are picking characters who are good for winning.

Fox is good for winning.

I recommend Fox.

Yes and no
Since I don't go to many tournaments ^^

But in general i prefer top tiers because they are funnier to play.

I already tried Fox but I don't know,I don't like all these techs that needs to be frame perfect,...

I guess I'll stay with Sheik
Thanks everyone !

 

[Wow_Ben]

"sheik dittos" Is it impossible to di far away enough to not get regrabed after forward tilt?( basically is forward tilt regrab guaranteed) i try to di max distance and i get regrabbed. Can i jump out of it?

 

[Sempai]

Yes, I think against some characters like puff and peach it's not bad to turn into Zelda if you're about to die to maintain your full needle charge if you have one

Against puff?!? When you respawn and turn into sheik you are vulnerable before you can act = free rest.
So the question is, should I keep my full charge of needles (~17%) and take a punish (at least 10% potentially more depending upon character) OR just respawn as sheik and charge my needles when I can with no threat of punish.

TL DR: Dont die as zelda to keep your needles, its not worth it

 

[snapcaster]

Characters are too slow if you just watch them and jump away down b from them its very easy to get out without getting hit . Its a similar idea to how mango double jumped fire fox vs armada on fd to wear out armadas invincibility.

 

[FamilyTeam]

Hey. I'm new to playing Sheik seriously in Melee. I'm having trouble regrabing Marth when he DIs away from a Down throw at any percent. I have no problems regrabing him if he doesn't DI or tries to DI behind me, but if he DIs away, I always either miss the grab or don't get it in time. Is there any specific way you can do this that works better?
Also, since the bots are crap in Melee and playing with friends right now isn't possible for me, what would be the best way to train Sheik?

 

[Megapants]

Hello new sheik main here. I feel like I need to work on my DI so that I can put on more pressure safely.

I have a question about a sort of option select vs falcon's nair and other weak set up moves. Specifically in this video, Flash vs Gucci, at about 9:27 Flash runs in and whiffs a jab then gets hit by the second hit of falcon's nair. But flash is able to DI away and outspace the knee that comes afterwards and punish with a grab.

Is that just a reaction thing? Or does Flash do a preemptive crouch/DI away to cover himself? I think jab is good in those situations because you can do stuff like this on reaction but are there other situations that I can apply this strategy to like when I'm throwing out aerials or after grabbing? thanks for any help.

 

[BoxedOccaBerrys]

I have trouble with the Samus and the Pikachu matchup, do you guys have any tips for them?

 

[Sempai]

I have trouble with the Samus and the Pikachu matchup, do you guys have any tips for them?

Grabs on grabs on grabs.

You can literally run and shield in samus's face, and theres nothing she can do. Once samus is in the air, shes combo food (use uair)

Pika is the same concept, grab a lot. Except you can chain throw till what ~40% if they're perfect. Its pretty free. Space your fairs and bairs and abuse pikas short range.

 

[F. Stein]

You guys seem pretty lively, so I've got a couple of questions from the Shiek crowd. I know I'm asking about matchups that are really easy for your character but I'm hoping to get extra insight because I know zilch about Shiek except what I've learned fighting her.

1. What is the thing that Ganon can do to Shiek that is the most effective? Like what actually, really annoys Shiek players when they are playing Ganon? Is there a specific movement, attack or way of defending, edgeguarding or even DI that is difficult or frustrating to deal with from the Shiek perspective?

2. If Kirby is crouching what exactly can you hit him with? Does dash attack, grab, needles, ftilt or fair connect? If so is there specific spacing or special conditions that you have to set up in order to land them? Also. If you grab kirby and throw him, which way of DI'ing or jumping out is the most difficult for a Shiek player to respond to?

 

[Str8Bustr]

You guys seem pretty lively, so I've got a couple of questions from the Shiek crowd. I know I'm asking about matchups that are really easy for your character but I'm hoping to get extra insight because I know zilch about Shiek except what I've learned fighting her.

1. What is the thing that Ganon can do to Shiek that is the most effective? Like what actually, really annoys Shiek players when they are playing Ganon? Is there a specific movement, attack or way of defending, edgeguarding or even DI that is difficult or frustrating to deal with from the Shiek perspective?

2. If Kirby is crouching what exactly can you hit him with? Does dash attack, grab, needles, ftilt or fair connect? If so is there specific spacing or special conditions that you have to set up in order to land them? Also. If you grab kirby and throw him, which way of DI'ing or jumping out is the most difficult for a Shiek player to respond to?

Ganon has chaingrabs on Sheik, so that'd be annoying. But, Sheik also has chaingrabs on Ganon, so watch out for that. Sheik will wanna make you approach and punish mistakes, which isn't far off off from what Ganon wants as well afaik. You kinda just wanna stay just outside her range and try to hit her I guess. It's a rough matchup for Ganon. Thankfully

 

[snapcaster]

di mostly away but also very very slightly down on sheik's downthrow chaingrab <15% as ganon.

 

[Jackson]

Hey guys, can I get some general neutral game guidelines/tips? Although my punish game is pretty solid for my skill level, I feel that my neutral game is pretty mindless and weak. It feels like nothing works and I often degenerate to boost grabbing and random Ftilting until I can get a punish together.
Any basic ideas that I could build a fresh neutral game around(that doesn't suck)?

 

[Pauer]

Hey guys, can I get some general neutral game guidelines/tips? Although my punish game is pretty solid for my skill level, I feel that my neutral game is pretty mindless and weak. It feels like nothing works and I often degenerate to boost grabbing and random Ftilting until I can get a punish together.
Any basic ideas that I could build a fresh neutral game around(that doesn't suck)?

One basic idea is that of unreactable threats. What you have to realize is that since it takes humans time to process what they see, known as reaction time, you never see what is happening but what happened in the past, generally around 250ms or ~15 frames ago. This means that whatever you do within the next ~15 frames is completely ambiguous to any human. This is also why all fighting games share this rock-paper-scissor element, it's because within the unreactionary space all you can do is make an educated guess about what the enemy does.
Your main role as a player is to observe the enemy's patterns so you can make good decisions within the unreactionary space, since this is where all the decisions are made. At any point in time, you can imagine a heat-map of hitboxes that characters can throw out within 15 frames to visuallize unreactionary threats.
You can start with very simple ideas like dash forward so that you can threaten a dash-attack, then wavedash back. Would you have hit with the dash-attack? Then recreate the situation and do a dash-attack next time. Better opponents will be aware of this (if only subconsciously) so the next question to ask is will they do something different? In what pattern does they mix it up? Maybe they like to do the same thing twice, then change or never do the same option twice.

 

[GHOST4700]

How does one needle camp properly with sheik? Because I find myself approaching a lot especially in the fox, marth, Samus and Peach, putting me at a disadvantage. I play PAL version btw.

 

[B_Cypher]

Hey guys, can I get some general neutral game guidelines/tips? Although my punish game is pretty solid for my skill level, I feel that my neutral game is pretty mindless and weak. It feels like nothing works and I often degenerate to boost grabbing and random Ftilting until I can get a punish together.
Any basic ideas that I could build a fresh neutral game around(that doesn't suck)?

I may not be the best sheik, or even that good at all, but maybe something I say can help. I feel like sheik's neutral is pretty defensive/reaction-based which means she relies a lot on reacting to mistakes, like when someone dash-dancing too close to my shield and gets nair'd OOS.

So practicing movement with sheik is honestly more important than practicing movement with other characters, almost as important as Marth's movement options, because of how punish reliant she is. Watch Plup and analyze his platform movement because its ****ing beautiful. His punish game isnt even that amazing but he literally gets every punish possible because he of how smooth he is with his movement options.

 

[Gearitz]

Struggling with ac fair any ideas on what I could be doing wrong? Also I keep getting beat by fox cpu's in the new 20xx usually only by one stock but still feels a bit discouraged

 

[eideeiit]

How are you doing atm? I use the FF buffer for it so I go jump to FF to near immediate cstick.

 

[Gearitz]

How are you doing atm? I use the FF buffer for it so I go jump to FF to near immediate cstick.

I might have actually been doing it wrong I've been doing sh cstick ff

 

[eideeiit]

Usually getting to know the situation better helps me with stuff like this. Go through it in frame advance and then draw a conclusion I'd say.

 

[X WaNtEd X]

Can someone give me a reference to something on Sheik's ledge options? I'm looking for a guide or a post already made on the subject rather than an entirely new post that's most likely missing things.

 

[Tizio Random]

I'm having a doubt about PAL Sheik. Today I played with a friend of mine and he plays Fox and Marth. With the first one I was able to make consistent tech-chases with her dthrow when Fox was rolling behind me simply doing a wavedash backwards>regrab. But with Marth we tested and it is impossible to do. Is there some kind of list where I can see which character can be tech-chased this way? It would be really nice.

 

[asapcity]

Can someone give me a reference to something on Sheik's ledge options? I'm looking for a guide or a post already made on the subject rather than an entirely new post that's most likely missing things.

Here's a video on ledge options: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsvz44R4tgs
There's other threads focuses on her ledgedashes and up b options if your looking for something more specific

 

[Cho]

Man it's quiet in here

I couldn't find anything really about this tech, but I've been wondering about what causes it for a while now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxLKs-vs0w0 - (this is not my Video btw)

Do you guys have any information about it? I could see it being somewhat useful.. or at least incredibly flashy :>