Data Sheik Update History

[WondrousMoose]

This thread will be our site for posting and appropriately updating Sheik's changes with each patch. This is not a place for general discussion or debate regarding the character; with each patch, discuss suspected and confirmed changes.


Sheik-specific changes
1.0.4

• Fair damaged reduced from 6.8/6% to 5.5/4.8%
• Uair damage reduced from 8 to 7%
• Uair hits reduced from 5 to 4
• Uair knockback growth reduced from 166 to 138
• Needle Storm lag increased*
• Bouncing Fish base knockback reduced from 30 to 26
• Bouncing Fish knockback growth reduced from 100 to 90

1.0.6

• Dtilt damage reduced from 7.5 to 5%
• Bair damaged reduced from 11/10/5% to 8/7/5%
• Dtilt base knockback increased from 35 to 37
• Dtilt knockback growth increased from 80 to 100

1.0.8

• No Sheik changes

1.1.0

• Fair damage reduced from 5.5/4.8% to 5/4.3%
• Fair sour spot now overlaps sweet spot
• Fair sweet spot knockback scaling increased from 125 to 132

1.1.1

• Penetrating Needles shield damage reduced from 9 to 6
• Final smash grab hitbox increased from 32 to 33

1.1.3

• No Sheik changes

1.1.4

• Vanish disappearance hitbox knockback growth reduced from 104 to 102
• Vanish hitbox size reduced from 14 to 13
• Weight reduced from 85 to 84

1.1.5

• Fair defensive hitbox Z position reduced from 3.5 to 2.5
• Fair hitbox Z position reduced from 3.5 to 2.5
• Needle Storm range reduced
• Fthrow angle changed from 70 to 72
• Fthrow knockback growth increased from 65 to 79
• Dthrow angle changed from 80 to 77
• Dthrow knockback growth increased from 75 to 90
• Weight reduced from 84 to 81
• Item toss strength reduced from .896 to .866
• Dsmash knockback growth increased from 155 to 165

1.1.6

• No Sheik changes

Global changes affecting Sheik
1.0.4

• Vertical vectoring removed
• DACUS removed

1.0.8

• Ground-to-air transition mechanics altered; Needle Gliding Removed

1.1.0

• Spot Dodge and Roll invincibility reduced by 1 frame

1.1.1

• Backward roll and airdodge invinsibility reduced from 17 frames to 16 frames
• Changes in shield behavior
• Getup attack shield damage reduced from 10 to 8

*no formal data to support change

 

[Sean de Lure]

wasn't there a needle endlag increase in 1.0.4 too?
or at least somewhere, I don't exactly remember when

 

[Cyn]

Thanks @Shaya .

 

[ArikadoSD]

wasn't there a needle endlag increase in 1.0.4 too?
or at least somewhere, I don't exactly remember when

There was

 

[WondrousMoose]

wasn't there a needle endlag increase in 1.0.4 too?
or at least somewhere, I don't exactly remember when

I haven't found anything reporting that, but I'll update if I do.

 

[Illuminose]

I haven't found anything reporting that, but I'll update if I do.

it happened, no specific frame data changes but it was a significant change

1.0.8 needle gliding removed never forget

 

[WondrousMoose]

it happened, no specific frame data changes but it was a significant change

1.0.8 needle gliding removed never forget

The removal of Needle Gliding wasn't a Sheik-specific change. The ability for any fighter's neutral special to work that way was removed.

 

[Absol]

It should be mentioned that uair hardly got touched in practicality because vectoring was removed at the same time it was nerfed. I'm not saying you should edit the OP since it was a global change and not just sheik, but I just was pointing it out

 

[WondrousMoose]

It should be mentioned that uair hardly got touched in practicality because vectoring was removed at the same time it was nerfed. I'm not saying you should edit the OP since it was a global change and not just sheik, but I just was pointing it out

Eh, why not? I've updated the OP to include relevant global changes.

 

[Absol]

Sheiks biggest buff was the removal of vectoring lol

 

[gsmVoiD]

Vectoring was not removed; Vertical vectoring was removed. Horizontal vectoring still exists.

 

[ArikadoSD]

Needles had a pretty big nerf in terms of end lag in 1.0.4, surprised you missed it.

 

[WondrousMoose]

Needles had a pretty big nerf in terms of end lag in 1.0.4, surprised you missed it.

Link?

 

[ArikadoSD]

Link?

Her wiki page says it was nerfed, and I'm 100% certain about it because it was one of the most obvious nerfes she's gotten.

 

[WondrousMoose]

Her wiki page says it was nerfed, and I'm 100% certain about it because it was one of the most obvious nerfes she's gotten.

Someone else mentioned it, and I couldn't find anything on it, but I'll look back into it.

 

[Absol]

Needles added shield stun pretty much invalidates any end lag she got on her needles

 

[S_B]

Needles added shield stun pretty much invalidates any end lag she got on her needles

Yeah, needles in general aren't going to be very punishable.

Also, I would've mentioned this in the other thread but it was closed. This patch is probably a bad indicator for what Sakurai intends for character balance (except Weegee's, heh...) as the sweeping change through the shield stun adjustment is the type of thing that's best to change while making VERY few other alterations and see how the whole thing pans out for a while.

Future Sheik adjustments MAY be coming, but this wasn't the patch where we'd be seeing them, and I don't say this as "Doom and Gloom", fist shaking, etc., just saying that this patch dropped a bomb on the game so it was wise to not balance much else in the meantime (except the Weegee Dthrow nado combo which was pretty braindead...).

Most people main at least 2-3 characters so if you were hoping for buffs for them, don't despair.

 

[I AKU I]

Hey guys, Shaya posted some great frame advantage data for Sheik's aerials in the latest patch that you all might be interested in. I suggest that this info be placed in the OP of the "Sheik In 1.1.1" thread if it ever gets reopened.

Sheik safety now

Attack Name Full Action Auto Cancel Landing
Neutral Air Sweet [-36,-39] [-19,-22] -3
Neutral Air Sour [-14,-37] [3,-20] -5
Forward Air [-22,-24] [0,-2] -5
Back Air1 [-24,-26] [-19,-21] -5
Back Air2 [-18,-25] [-13,-20] -7
Up Air [-14,-15] [-19,-20] -16
Down Air1 [-16,-34] [-16,-34] -25
Down Air2 [-19,-20]

I also found this to be particularly interesting:

Hold up a second, most standing grabs are Frame 6, meaning you can't punish misspaced Sheik aerials with shieldgrabs anymore, correct?

I believe this might be the case for autocancelled fair, but not for her other aerials. Hopefully, I'll have some time to test this later. I'm going to have a field day with this if it is true. We would be able to bait our opponents into trying a grab by throwing out a mis-spaced fair, and then punish them for it.

And lastly this:

The hitlag multiplier's application to projectiles changes the theorycraft. This hurts these projectiles: Sheik Needle Storm (0.8x)

...and helps these: (Grey attacks don't actually have a difference due to the way things are calculated)
Sheik Penetrating Needles (1.1x) --- remember, these got a shield damage nerf
Sheik Paralyzing Needle (2.0x)

 

[John12346]

I believe this might be the case for autocancelled fair, but not for her other aerials. Hopefully, I'll have some time to test this later. I'm going to have a field day with this if it is true. We would be able to bait our opponents into trying a grab by throwing out a mis-spaced fair, and then punish them for it.

Seems I was off the mark by a tiny bit. Since Fair is -5 now, a Frame 6 grab can still snag Sheik since she has no Frame 1 options. However, any grab that's Frame 7 will get jab traded or spotdodged. Any grab that's Frame 9 and later gets rolled.

How significant is this? Falcon, Marth, and Meta Knight have Frame 7 grabs. Donkey Kong has a Frame 8 grab. You just broke a lot of matchups.

 

[ArikadoSD]

Are you literally saying I don't even have to bother spacing Fair on shield anymore?

LOL

 

[Absol]

Sheik can use fair on ZSS shield, buffer grab, and get ZSS before she can grab sheik. Ive tested.

 

[exnecross]

The hitlag multiplier's application to projectiles changes the theorycraft. This hurts these projectiles: Sheik Needle Storm (0.8x)

I'm a little confused by this. Does this mean needles are flat out less safe on shield now, or does the increased shieldstun make up for it?

 

[I AKU I]

I'm a little confused by this. Does this mean needles are flat out less safe on shield now, or does the increased shieldstun make up for it?

This tripped me up too, but the answer to your question is yes. There was a weird shield mechanic pre-patch that caused the hitlag multiplier on all shielded moves to be rounded up or down to 1. Put simply, this created an extra amount of hitlag frames than there would have otherwise been for moves with a multiplier <1, and it gave the attacker the ability to act while the opponent was still in hitlag.

The hitlag "bonus" was removed in this patch. So shielding opponents are now going to receive the exact amount of hitlag that they are supposed to. I've spotted a couple of exceptions to this, but they only apply to moves with an electric element and moves with a hitlag multiplier >1.

This just means that Sheik's needles now result in 4 frames of hitlag instead of 5. As hinted, our needles also gain 2-3 frames of shield stun which offsets the reduction of hitlag frames. Which leads us to our final point: Single shot needles gain shield safety in this patch, but multishot needles needles actually lose safeness when accounting for the changed shield lock mechanics.

Before it used to be the case that shield lock frames were applied on top of shield stun & hitlag. Now they overlap. The significance of this is that we lose a great deal of frame advantage when throwing all six needles. Before, our shielding opponent would suffer 5 frames of hitlag from our sixth needle and then experience shield lock frames caused by the five preceding ones.

Because shield lock now overlaps with hitlag this is no longer the case. Our opponent now only suffers 6-7 frames of hitlag+shieldstun after the final needle hits them. I'm not exactly sure how many shield lock frames this eliminated, but Shaya estimated that is is about 7 frames or so. If true, this makes fully charged needle storm about half as safe on shield as it was in the previous patches.

More quantitative research is needed, but I think it might be worthwhile to look into the additional benefits of penetrating needles vs standard ones. As Thinkaman noted, penetrating needles weren't nerfed in any way apart from shield damage (which is still fairly high IMO). I think standard needles are still going to be much better, but these are some reasons I can think of that might make penetrating needles a little more viable:

• The changed shield mechanics favors the use of fewer needles.
  
• They have a higher hitlag multiplier.
• Increased ability to pressure shields makes breaking/weakening them easier than it used to be?
  
• They charge faster and I believe they have less cooldown lag than standard needles? (I think this has always been the case, but I'm just throwing it in anyways.)

EDIT: I forgot to add that penetrating needles do less damage than standard ones. Meaning that they should cause less shieldstun, but I still find this to be an interesting subject nonetheless.

 

[I AKU I]

And here's a complete list of characters that have standing grabs that activate on frame 7 or later:

Roy, Falcon, MK, Ike, Marth, Lucina, ROB, Shulk, Ganon, Robin, Mewtwo, and DDD: 7

Falco, Wario, DHD, DK: 8

Bowser, Mac: 9

Zelda:10

Zamus: 16-19
Greninja and all of the tether grab characters: 100 million bajillion

Absol : Keep in mind that Marth and Zamus may still be able to punish a poorly spaced fair with JC Up-B out of shield. The hitboxes on both moves only take 5 frames to come out if they are jump cancelled. (JC only takes up 1 frame, correct?)

But yeah, our fair will be even more infuriating to all characters that don't have a frame 6 grab. I don't think anyone else on that list has the means to deal with a jab follow up after a mis-spaced fair on their shield.

 

[exnecross]

This tripped me up too, but the answer to your question is yes. There was a weird shield mechanic pre-patch that caused the hitlag multiplier on all shielded moves to be rounded up or down to 1. Put simply, this created an extra amount of hitlag frames than there would have otherwise been for moves with a multiplier <1, and it gave the attacker the ability to act while the opponent was still in hitlag.

The hitlag "bonus" was removed in this patch. So shielding opponents are now going to receive the exact amount of hitlag that they are supposed to. I've spotted a couple of exceptions to this, but they only apply to moves with an electric element and moves with a hitlag multiplier >1.

This just means that Sheik's needles now result in 4 frames of hitlag instead of 5. As hinted, our needles also gain 2-3 frames of shield stun which offsets the reduction of hitlag frames. Which leads us to our final point: Single shot needles gain shield safety in this patch, but multishot needles needles actually lose safeness when accounting for the changed shield lock mechanics.

Before it used to be the case that shield lock frames were applied on top of shield stun & hitlag. Now they overlap. The significance of this is that we lose a great deal of frame advantage when throwing all six needles. Before, our shielding opponent would suffer 5 frames of hitlag from our sixth needle and then experience shield lock frames caused by the five preceding ones.

Because shield lock now overlaps with hitlag this is no longer the case. Our opponent now only suffers 6-7 frames of hitlag+shieldstun after the final needle hits them. I'm not exactly sure how many shield lock frames this eliminated, but Shaya estimated that is is about 7 frames or so. If true, this makes fully charged needle storm about half as safe on shield as it was in the previous patches.

More quantitative research is needed, but I think it might be worthwhile to look into the additional benefits of penetrating needles vs standard ones. As Thinkaman noted, penetrating needles weren't nerfed in any way apart from shield damage (which is still fairly high IMO). I think standard needles are still going to be much better, but these are some reasons I can think of that might make penetrating needles a little more viable:

• The changed shield mechanics favors the use of fewer needles.
  
• They have a higher hitlag multiplier.
• Increased ability to pressure shields makes breaking/weakening them easier than it used to be?
  
• They charge faster and I believe they have less cooldown lag than standard needles? (I think this has always been the case, but I'm just throwing it in anyways.)

EDIT: I forgot to add that penetrating needles do less damage than standard ones. Meaning that they should cause less shieldstun, but I still find this to be an interesting subject nonetheless.

This really sucks. I guess it's gonna force me (and others) to learn to only use rising needles when we are absolutely sure they are either going to connect or be air dodged. Before we could usually get away with it by nairing to cancel some of the lag, but it seems like now we're gonna be getting punished for it if we aren't careful.

The single shot needle being safer is a small bit of relief for those Sheiks who like to retreat into a b-reverse single needle shot.

 

[New_Dumal]

This changes in the shield changed what we could punish with USmash ?
Earlier we could punish Falcon's Raptor Boost in a sweetspoted USmash, and now?
Rosalina USmash was punishable with our USmash in the same way. I'm afraid this new shield mechanics was way worse to Sheik that it was for everyone else.

 

[{Kyro}]

This changes in the shield changed what we could punish with USmash ?
Earlier we could punish Falcon's Raptor Boost in a sweetspoted USmash, and now?
Rosalina USmash was punishable with our USmash in the same way. I'm afraid this new shield mechanics was way worse to Sheik that it was for everyone else.

That's true, but it also makes landing fair safer on shield, and same can be said for landing nair, bair and bouncing fish. I would argue that those are even more important than USmash punishes on a few characters but that's just me

 

[ArikadoSD]

1.1.5

Needles range shorter. Used to be approximately 3/4 of FD, now it's only barely 1/2.
Dthrow angle and KB changed, sends opponents further, rendering it useless as a combo throw at high percents.
Fthrow angle changed.
Weight 84 -> 81
Fair defensive Hitbox Z Postion: 3.5 -> 2.5
Fair Hitbox Z Position: 3.5 -> 2.5

Dsmash KBG: 155 -> 165

 

[Fex13]

what does this fair hitbox z position mean? sry for being uneducated...

 

[ArikadoSD]

what does this fair hitbox z position mean? sry for being uneducated...

pretty much no one knows LOL

but this is the hitbox change:

if you cant see it look how far the end of hitsphere is from sheik's hand in both images. top image is pre and bottom image is post patch.

 

[exnecross]

pretty much no one knows LOL

but this is the hitbox change:

if you cant see it look how far the end of hitsphere is from sheik's hand in both images. top image is pre and bottom image is post patch.

That's.. actually a lot. Many things will outrange us now that didn't before. I feel like they want Sheiks to play less defensively now with the fair range nerf and needle nerf, but Sheik play won't change. We're just gonna be worse at what we do.

 

[Fex13]

thank you for answering^^
and, has anybody tested throwcombos yet? it seems with the altered angles and the increased kbg, combos wont work too well anymore.

 

[r_greening1]

what does this fair hitbox z position mean? sry for being uneducated...

When you see a "Z-axis" change, think of the hitbox's position. For Sheik's f-air, they moved the second hitbox up her arm, which in turn shortened her disjoint and thus her range.

 

[ArikadoSD]

WondrousMoose dude it doesnt matter if dthrow and fthrow have increased numbers for bkb/kbg, they're definitely nerfs. mark them red imo.

 

[WondrousMoose]

WondrousMoose dude it doesnt matter if dthrow and fthrow have increased numbers for bkb/kbg, they're definitely nerfs. mark them red imo.

That makes sense. Since they're combo throws, more knockback hurts them.

 

[Su4]

WondrousMoose dude it doesnt matter if dthrow and fthrow have increased numbers for bkb/kbg, they're definitely nerfs. mark them red imo.

Honestly, it kinda dose matter as follow ups are less reliable and timing jumps and extending bouncing fish is a bit harder to do. Just sayin

 

[ArikadoSD]

Honestly, it kinda dose matter as follow ups are less reliable and timing jumps and extending bouncing fish is a bit harder to do. Just sayin

you misunderstood, moose had them labelled as buff just because the numbers are increased (which, to the ignorant eye, might seem as a buff), when in reality it's a nerf because more knockback means less followups

 

[Su4]

you misunderstood, moose had them labelled as buff just because the numbers are increased (which, to the ignorant eye, might seem as a buff), when in reality it's a nerf because more knockback means less followups

oh sorry for the trouble (thanks!)