On using years of smash as evidence against reaction tech chasing. Reaction tech chasing is something that if perfected, leads to many zero to death situation. Maybe my history is flawed (and please correct me), but wasn't a big deal made of how M2K pushed the punish game to encompass that. So the focus on (and success of it) is much more recent. Add on to that the difficulty. When M2K pushed his punish game, it was mostly marth v spacies that we think of and we can all agree between the two, marth v spacies is much more manageable.
On mobile and in a rush, so I can't quote/reread the post if there was anything else. I dont think history is the correct argument here. Also, @
Umbreon weren't you saying at the top level of play people can react to sheiks throw mixup? Wasn't it also proven how many frames to react was like 14-16. If so, you can react to tech in place with a grab for 7 framers. Characters that are mobile like Swuirtle, Falcon, Sheik, and others if they react to tech rolls at the same point and still grab tech rolls. Miss tech has some 30 frames required before getup attack hitboxes can come out, so you should be able to react.
Sorry if this is all scatterbrained and has misinfo, I just wanted to put some of this out there. Btw, the best argument against reaction tech chasing is stamina (doing it in tourney tons of times in a row) imo.
i think this would be a good point to clarify some info about sheik's throw game for 2.5 to 3.5 then.
the first thing is DIing her throws. when you become a more experienced player, you do not try to DI whatever your opponent does on reaction to the attack. this is because you generally know what your opponent is trying to do, and you build in small ways to make those things less effective. for an easy example, when i do sheik's tilts, i hold down during their animation. this is obvious for dtilt, but i do it for ftilt and utilt too, so if i trade with the opponent (which is often since her moves are weak damage/knockback wise), i will get ASDI down and make my opponents conversions less effective. similarly, when i am grabbed by say luigi, i do not DI in reaction to the throw, but rather I DI to the act of being grabbed. this gives me more time to react. with luigi, you always want to DI up and behind him to make dthrow/upthrow combos less effective, you already have the good DI against fthrow even though its fast, and if he does bthrow the animation is long enough that you can change your DI before he releases your character.
the first misnomer is that sheik's throws are this way and not a true mixup. if you try to react to sheiks throws like an actual mixup, you will take the 50/50 and lose it quite often. if you look for a more universal DI, you can sidestep this issue nicely. if your character is in the floaty or pseudo floaty category, you want to react to the act of getting grabbed by sheik with DI up, and then when she does the throw, you do a subtle DI inward against the throw, and force her to attack you instead of regrabbing. you can then DI whatever attack she does away and generally reset to neutral like you can always do against sheik. if your character is a fastfaller or pseudo fastfaller, you react to being grabbed with DI down, and then try to follow the throw to 45 degrees down and away in the notches on the control stick. this DI will generally put your character outside of ftilt/dtilt spacing while also being too close for dash attack. you're in a tech situation similar to what 3.6 sheiks throws would do, which is still a minor positional disadvantage, but overall its just not very powerful for her to work with.
if you do these things, sheik's throw game is still potent, but relies much more on the inexperience or human error of the opponent. it has counterplay while still feeling powerful. and frankly knowing these DIs is part of why ive bodied everyone in sheik dittos pretty easily- i always have the better punish game from doing the labwork, and imo the player should be rewarded for having that sort of knowledge, just like m2k was when he pioneered similar punishment options in melee. i would know, i was working with him extensively at the time and we learned it together.
the second issue with sheik's grab then, is that in knowing that there is always an optimal DI, there is an optimal choice for throws. hence, sheik's throws were never a true "mixup" in any way, since either dthrow or bthrow was better than the other in any given situation. this requires the sheik player to differentiate them well, and this gives an experienced opponent more counterplay with reactive DI when "they cant react to that" by the frame data. similarly, when i play strongbad's wario, the bite comparison is actually incredibly relevant- when i first played strongbad, he did some devastating 80+% combos to me as i got used to his character. however, i'm an experienced player and wario isn't doing anything inherently unfair, and i saw the holes to that punishment immediately. within maybe 3-4 matches and since then, i could play SB in 3.5 and he would greatly mitigate my punish game off of sheik's throws despite wario having a favorable combo weight for sheik's throws, and similarly i can mitigate SB's punish game. however rarely i get hit by bite > waft combo, i know it was my human error and not that it was unfair or unreactable, and its also generally because SB set up the bite as a frametrap to encourage me to DI inwards in tandem with something else because he inherently understands that a blind bite > waft will basically never hit. and i do the same thing in 3.5 with sheik's bthrow, because everything else she does besides kill fairs you generally want to DI away anyway. it's very much reactable but it keeps people honest. good players get hit by my punishes much less because they have learned how to handle it. i will still get them occasionally like SB hits me with bite > waft, but we are imperfect players and thats how it goes. sheik's throws were never really a "mixup" to begin with.
the third issue is that sheik's throws were still slightly problematic in 3.5, but i'd like to reinforce the point of "slightly". the real issue is that if you played a few specific characters like ganondorf or link, you should be dead from a grab regardless of DI because neither escape DI is good on their combo weight. i think this effect may have been masked since sheik generally destroys the characters with similar combo weights anyway, not because grabs are a free KO but because those characters coincidentally dont have the tools to handle sheik's ground options to begin with. the grab issue simply exacerbates that issue and may work to hide it. it also allows strong tech resets, and i don't buy that it's "infinite tech chasing" but i can also understand why its considered a bit too powerful. on the opposite side, sheik also has no truly good options vs fastfallers, since she does not have any high base knockback launchers (roy dtilt, peach dash attack) nor does she have an upthrow that specifically ruins them like say marth does. i suggested that sheik get 3.5 throws back for 3.6, but also to slightly nerf them by giving them more knockback growth so they don't effectively OHKO bad combo weights or force repeated tech situations upwards of 80%+. i also suggested that bthrow get a higher release point to be more effective vs fastfallers, leaving dthrow better against floaty characters. this removes some of the ambiguity behind sheik's throws if midlevel players still choose to play against it as a mixup. i think this should put the character on par with the wario samus ike ish tier, which is imo what the game should be balanced around- clearly powerful, but also fair and requires a lot from the player to make it work.
the issue with pal throws is that they are not threatening at all. it is not powerful and too easily reacted to. since sheik has no counterplay to this DI, she has little reason to use throws at all, but she also then has no way to beat CC abuse. so her best conversions are spamming safe fair/bair over and over with little reward. since she operates within a specific range, she also now loses to WD back and DD abuse since boostgrab is no longer a worthwhile option to check them. again, theres just no counterplay now. the correct counterplay to repeated tech chasing is not to try to "trick the opponent" and its not a mindgame. rather, all you have to do is not tech, stand, and do your best disrespect option over and over. even if the sheik player knows what you are going to do, you repeatedly put the onus on them to play within a very small frame window or lose their punishment and get converted on back. since her punishments are simply not very threatening, your risk of doing it over and over is very low. and since this is always your best option, that's where the depth of the game ends.
so here's how it plays out- i the sheik will grab you, and you will react to being grabbed and DI away, and i will try to tech chase it, and you will do a disrespect option every time and it will force me to be perfect to get a mediocre punish, or i will make an error and you will reset at little risk and possibly combo me back. knowing it's no longer worth it, i will just spam fair/bair without grabs, and you can exploit this with CC/DD/WD abuse in neutral into more potent conversions, also known as "good basic play" that the entire rest of the cast can do. it's shallow, boring, unfun for both players, and pushes people off the character and out of the game. and it's true, the few dedicated sheik players have all switched characters or quit, and i understand why. she can still do okay at mid level for people that dont understand this so "she's not that bad", but against good players having poor conversions is a death sentence to viability. even if you thought sheik was problematic in 3.5 (and i did too btw) this version is certainly more problematic.
