Why is Sheik so difficult to play?

[Spark31]

Personally, I've found Sheik to be one of the easiest to learn characters in the game. However, I believe, for me at least, Sheik literally fits my play style perfectly. I suspect for many Sheik mains, this is the same. However, I am largely aware that almost anyone who doesn't main Sheik is painfully bad at playing Sheik. The most notable of situations is with Diddy mains who just want to use the character one step down the matter. But this begs the question in my mind, WHY are these Diddy players failing so terribly with Sheik? Why is anyone in general who doesn't main Sheik, so garbage with her?

 

[Zankoku]

What? Sheik is definitely considered better than Diddy at this point. And it's really just a matter of learning how the character works. Sheik's pretty basic, but you still can't play her the same as Diddy.

 

[Spark31]

What? Sheik is definitely considered better than Diddy at this point. And it's really just a matter of learning how the character works. Sheik's pretty basic, but you still can't play her the same as Diddy.

I meant when he was nerfed they needed the char that would take the number one spot to main.

 

[Sean de Lure]

A top player knows fundamentals extremely well, and how to apply them. This is how Zero pulls off winning with sheik despite not maining her.
A medium level player may know what fundamentals are, but have trouble applying them or learning them in some form or fashion like that. I assume this is the group you are referring to most. They spent there time learning how diddy works, and they kind of learned how smash works in general (fundamentals), but they mostly know diddy. This is the problem with switching or maining too many, you lose your sense of fundamentals and application, because you are trying to learn the character.
A bad player just took diddy because he was easy, lol. Super stale uair used to kill at a reasonable percent. Sheik isn't an easy character. Gotta put in that work :]

But yeah, hope that kind of makes sense. That's what I think of it at any rate. My communication skills are pretty crappy so it might sound gibberish.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

My thought might be unfamiliarity with a character. No matter what each character will play differently and therefore require time to adjust.

An example for me is the fact that Falco's Bair in Brawl got wrecked going into smash4. I say this because having a lingering hitbox that lasts for awhile is much different usage than a move that requires a very short period of time to aim with it.

A very noxious change for me playing any character that is not Marth in melee is me trying to grab stuff that would work as Marth, but not as say captain falcon.

Another thing too might simply be that Sheik requires probably the fastest movement in the entire game. Not as much as melee, but its certainly a thing that can affect people. I did a rudimentary test with someone once before about jab -> grab or jab -> ftilt with Sheik on Zelda. Zelda could not escape either action I recall with airdodge, attack, or jump unless she used Nayru's Love to escape it. I am not sure how well that relates to other characers, but reacting I feel Sheik's effectiveness certainly requires a good deal reaction to things.

 

[Tenretsujin10]

A top player knows fundamentals extremely well, and how to apply them. This is how Zero pulls off winning with sheik despite not maining her.
A medium level player may know what fundamentals are, but have trouble applying them or learning them in some form or fashion like that. I assume this is the group you are referring to most. They spent there time learning how diddy works, and they kind of learned how smash works in general (fundamentals), but they mostly know diddy. This is the problem with switching or maining too many, you lose your sense of fundamentals and application, because you are trying to learn the character.
A bad player just took diddy because he was easy, lol. Super stale uair used to kill at a reasonable percent. Sheik isn't an easy character. Gotta put in that work :]

But yeah, hope that kind of makes sense. That's what I think of it at any rate. My communication skills are pretty crappy so it might sound gibberish.

ZeRo is in fact a Sheik main and has had an extensive amount of experience playing her before patch 1.0.8, heck he played her in patch 1.0.7 when his diddy lost.

 

[ArikadoSD]

ZeRo is in fact a Sheik main and has had an extensive amount of experience playing her before patch 1.0.8, heck he played her in patch 1.0.7 when his diddy lost.

And you know that how? He hasn't been seen in a tournament playing Sheik except against FOW's Ness in DVDA after Diddy got nerfed in the mewtwo patch.

Anyway, to stay on-topic, I believe Sheik is one of the most technical characters in the game; coming after Peach, Fox, and Ryu. She requires precision with using her aerials/tilts and fastfalling them correctly etc. Stuff like that only becomes easy/doable with practice and experience.

 

[Tenretsujin10]

And you know that how? He hasn't been seen in a tournament playing Sheik except against FOW's Ness in DVDA after Diddy got nerfed in the mewtwo patch.

The tournament set of Mr. Concon vs Zero at Oomba convinced me that he Co-mains Sheik. And he HEAVILY used Sheik at Combo Breaker a month ago, so yeah...

 

[Spark31]

And you know that how? He hasn't been seen in a tournament playing Sheik except against FOW's Ness in DVDA after Diddy got nerfed in the mewtwo patch.

Anyway, to stay on-topic, I believe Sheik is one of the most technical characters in the game; coming after Peach, Fox, and Ryu. She requires precision with using her aerials/tilts and fastfalling them correctly etc. Stuff like that only becomes easy/doable with practice and experience.

0.o I can see how you can see how Peach can be considered more technical the Sheik (Although I disagree), But how dufuq is fox more technical than sheik?

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

The main problem that I seem to have with Sheik is that she lacks power, and some of her best KO moves are on the situational side. It takes a lot of patience and concentration to use Sheik at her fullest potential, and some people just don't have the quick reflexes to do that.

 

[ArikadoSD]

0.o I can see how you can see how Peach can be considered more technical the Sheik (Although I disagree), But how dufuq is fox more technical than sheik?

There is only a 2 frame window to autocancel his uair out of a shorthop (which is goddamn difficult, holy ****), his jab infinites require some frame perfect inputs at some times, and his jab jab usmash or jab jab dsmash is also pretty hard to pull off. That, plus some combos being a bit difficult to do (ff dair > usmash and soft nair > usmash) because they require quick reflexes, and the character itself feeling a bit sluggish due to him being a fastfaller all combined kinda make him pretty technical, whereas Sheik requires some precision with her fair usage only.

 

[BlastHappyNinja]

My guess is most of the people who tried to go from Diddy to Sheik found that Sheik isn't as braindead easy to play as Diddy. They probably saw that she's a dictator when it comes to the neutral game and thought, "Hey, this character is murdering face, this should get me an easy win!" In reality, Sheik's limited kill options and high skill floors PROBABLY deterred them from actually wanting to learn her and invest the time that they needed to get past said skill floor. They dropped her like a hot potato and went on to play other characters that weren't as hard to learn. I could be wrong of course, but it seems like the most likely thing to happen, given that a LOT of tierwhores played Diddy for an easy win. Now, Diddy is trash to them. He's still good, but he's not as braindead good as he was before.

 

[Tenretsujin10]

My guess is most of the people who tried to go from Diddy to Sheik found that Sheik isn't as braindead easy to play as Diddy. They probably saw that she's a dictator when it comes to the neutral game and thought, "Hey, this character is murdering face, this should get me an easy win!" In reality, Sheik's limited kill options and high skill floors PROBABLY deterred them from actually wanting to learn her and invest the time that they needed to get past said skill floor. They dropped her like a hot potato and went on to play other characters that weren't as hard to learn. I could be wrong of course, but it seems like the most likely thing to happen, given that a LOT of tierwhores played Diddy for an easy win. Now, Diddy is trash to them. He's still good, but he's not as braindead good as he was before.

Most Diddy players in my region switched to Luigi.

 

[BlastHappyNinja]

Most Diddy players in my region switched to Luigi.

Luigi is a lot easier to learn than Sheik, I can see why they did that.

 

[Sean de Lure]

There is only a 2 frame window to autocancel his uair out of a shorthop (which is goddamn difficult, holy ****), his jab infinites require some frame perfect inputs at some times, and his jab jab usmash or jab jab dsmash is also pretty hard to pull off. That, plus some combos being a bit difficult to do (ff dair > usmash and soft nair > usmash) because they require quick reflexes, and the character itself feeling a bit sluggish due to him being a fastfaller all combined kinda make him pretty technical, whereas Sheik requires some precision with her fair usage only.

dual stick for frame perfect rising aerials
jab jab just needs practice, it's not amazingly hard
I don't play enough fox to talk about djab smash
ffdair/nair usmash is reaction, not really technical

ZeRo is in fact a Sheik main and has had an extensive amount of experience playing her before patch 1.0.8, heck he played her in patch 1.0.7 when his diddy lost.

lol
he plays based on fundamentals, you can tell just by watching
BF combos? where
he's done the most bthrow BF's I've seen out of any top players, it's unreliable af, and it's not like he's hitting a lot of them either.
and extensive amount of experience before 1.0.8? I bet he hasn't spent more than a couple hours in training mode with sheik before 1.0.6 (or whichever was the first diddy nerf) at most getting basic strings and the feeling of sheik down.
he mains diddy before the first diddy nerf and you can't tell me otherwise

 

[HFlash]

Most Diddy players in my region switched to Luigi.

Because Luigi's D Throw ---> Down special is another Hoo Hah with different inputs.

 

[Tenretsujin10]

dual stick for frame perfect rising aerials
jab jab just needs practice, it's not amazingly hard
I don't play enough fox to talk about djab smash
ffdair/nair usmash is reaction, not really technical


lol
he plays based on fundamentals, you can tell just by watching
BF combos? where
he's done the most bthrow BF's I've seen out of any top players, it's unreliable af, and it's not like he's hitting a lot of them either.
and extensive amount of experience before 1.0.8? I bet he hasn't spent more than a couple hours in training mode with sheik before 1.0.6 (or whichever was the first diddy nerf) at most getting basic strings and the feeling of sheik down.
he mains diddy before the first diddy nerf and you can't tell me otherwise

IT'S NOT LIKE HE MADE A SHEIK TUTORIAL 7 MONTHS AGO, DETAILING A MAJORITY OF SHEIK'S SIMPLE BREAD AND BUTTER THAT WE USE TODAY.
Who cares what setups he chooses to do, it's not like you can play better than him. Why care to criticize?

 

[Sean de Lure]

IT'S NOT LIKE HE MADE A SHEIK TUTORIAL 7 MONTHS AGO, DETAILING A MAJORITY OF SHEIK'S SIMPLE BREAD AND BUTTER THAT WE USE TODAY.
Who cares what setups he chooses to do, it's not like you can play better than him. Why care to criticize?

oh yes nice simple BnB's, totally wouldn't have figured them out without him
and yes, he is a better player than I, that is clear, thank you. You keep ignoring the part where I say he plays sheik based on fundamentals
I don't care how he plays sheik, I'm pointing out what he does that shows he isn't a sheik main which you so dearly believe

 

[Tenretsujin10]

oh yes nice simple BnB's, totally wouldn't have figured them out without him
and yes, he is a better player than I, that is clear, thank you. You keep ignoring the part where I say he plays sheik based on fundamentals
I don't care how he plays sheik, I'm pointing out what he does that shows he isn't a sheik main which you so dearly believe

I am a huge Mr. R fan, but man, it's gonna be really funny/ironic when ZeRo, who isn't even considered a "Sheik main" beats the best Sheik main in the world.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Most Diddy players in my region switched to Luigi.

****ing bandwagonists.

 

[ArikadoSD]

I am a huge Mr. R fan, but man, it's gonna be really funny/ironic when ZeRo, who isn't even considered a "Sheik main" beats the best Sheik main in the world.

Me and Sean de Lure are saying this based on what we saw. We don't hate ZeRo. We're not personally gunning for him. We just formed opinions based on what we saw.

If he does beat Mr. R in sheik dittos then perhaps we'll change our opinions accordingly.

 

[Illuminose]

I think it's pretty silly to consider ZeRo's Sheik unrefined or anything really but amazing. He won CEO without using Diddy in Top 8. Even if his Sheik was all fundamentals (it's not), that automatically makes his Sheik incredible regardless of what you'd like to think. He was a pre-patch Diddy main, but he played Sheik during 3DS (and heck even put up a Sheik guide on his channel!) and has had a Sheik since forever. This Sheik he has had didn't magically appear after 1.0.6; he pretty much started using Sheik in the first tournaments he went to after the patch as certain matchups became problematic, and he used all Sheik for CEO Top 8. He wants to play Diddy, this much is obvious, but his Sheik is polished and much less beatable. He's definitely a Sheik main now anyways now lol, dual maining Diddy but Sheik is the character he uses to win, as evidenced by his Top 8 performances at CEO. Pretty sure we'll see plenty of Sheik at EVO too. It's pretty silly to call him a non-Sheik main, really. Is it because his Sheik being so dominant is a somewhat recent thing as he turned more to his Sheik after Diddy received even more nerfs? idk man, he's been using Sheik extensively in tournament since like May.

What makes ZeRo's Sheik good? There's a few things. The most major part is that he's very consistent. Instead of opting for flashier options, he plays a consistent defensive game that is pretty much unmatched as far as defensive Sheik is concerned. His Sheik is also definitely a step above pocket Sheiks. His fair strings are absolutely perfect and he does things like fair -> bouncing fish, falling up air combo extensions, vanish kill setup traps, and other specialized Sheik things that aren't really utilized effectively by people who aren't good at the character/understand her really well.

 

[TurboLink]

I main Link and picked up Sheik easily.

 

[ItsKaden]

This is a joke. Sheik takes lots of skill and practice to play effectively. If you've seen any top players sheik's that don't main her, they pretty much suck, despite being the best character in the game. It was not like that with Diddy. A 2 year old could beat a good player with pre-patch Diddy LOL. Also, ZeRo has beaten Mr R plenty of times in a Sheik ditto. His Sheik is not just fundamentals. Just because he didn't use her in tournament for awhile doesn't mean he didn't practice her LOL.

 

[ArikadoSD]

Also, ZeRo has beaten Mr R plenty of times in a Sheik ditto. His Sheik is not just fundamentals.

no, he hasn't.

 

[ItsKaden]

Well, not in tournament, but from what I hear, ZeRo wins most of their friendlies. If you honestly don't think ZeRo's Sheik is on or above Mr R's level, you're a fool.

 

[ArikadoSD]

Well, not in tournament, but from what I hear, ZeRo wins most of their friendlies. If you honestly don't think ZeRo's Sheik is on or above Mr R's level, you're a fool.

Friendlies mean jack ****

 

[ItsKaden]

Also, from what I hear, people think ZeRo's Sheik isn't that amazing because it's basic? Then you would be saying the same about Mr R, the best Sheik in the world. Tell me, what is it so technical/amazing that Mr. R does? He told me that he pretty much spends 0 time in the lab, so by your logic, the only actual "good Sheik" is VoiD, right? Because all good Sheik's pretty much do the same things, but with different play-styles. I think there are many different ways a good Sheik can be played. ZeRo, for example, plays defensive, and plays really safe, just waiting for you to make a mistake. Mr. R, for example, plays a very aggressive, yet safe Sheik. Like I said before, and I'll say again, If you don't think ZeRo's Sheik is on or above Mr. R's level, you're a fool.

 

[Tenretsujin10]

Leo > Mr. R

 

[Dr. Bread]

sheik is probably hard because youre required to basically win engagements 60% or 70% of the time in most matchups in order to break even, because sheik's damage is so low.

Sheik is also extremely opportunistic when it comes to killing, since her k.o moves have such low knock and/or are very laggy. If you dont get a gimp, you can expect your opponent to die anywhere between 120 percent and 200 percent, keeping in mind that sheik does low damage and can no longer combo at these percentages, enemies have a lot of time to get a pivotal kill with rage.

tl:dr Sheik has tools for every matchup, and can seem unbeatable, but if you aren't strictly winning your engagements, despite the character's aesthetic theme, she has no explosive comeback potential under her sleeve(except for gimps, though thats not relevant in every matchup.)

 

[YoshiYoshi]

I don't main Sheik, but I've found her difficult to use because it's hard to optimize her advantages.

Using her air attacks isn't as simple as jump and attack. There are many different points in the arc of her jump where she can use an air attack. Too soon or too late and the move will miss.

I don't know any of her combos or 50/50s. She's pretty awful if you can't string together a KO. Top level Sheik makes Fair off the stage look easier than it is.

Sheik actually does have punishable lag, it just takes intense spacing skill to hide it.

She's kind of like the opposite of my main where she is disadvantaged at low level play with low level players but has significant advantages at high level play with high level players.