I don't know man, Olimars are still a very difficult match up for me. Would you two be kind enough to give a in depth explanation why it's more around even then in Olimar favor just so us other Sheik users could start doing better?
Sure. I'm up for some Olimar discussion. I'm actually thinking about considering it in favor of Sheik. Olimar doesn't really have much against her if you think about. Besides the difference in how well they kill, Olimar loses in every category.
In the Olimar matchup, Sheik's strength in edge-guarding combined with Olimar's horrendous recovery will keep the match-up from being heavily in Olimar's favor. Also, I remember reading somewhere (I think this thread) about Olimar having a weakspot diagonal from him, which was posted by an Olimar user.
That was me, and yes. A properly spaced nair>jab is faster than Olimar's grab. The grab has broken range, but doesn't have grab armor, and it's rather slow compared to nontether(chain, w/e) grabs. In other words, it can't be shieldgrabbed, thus rendering my favorite attack useless.
Considering that I've played 1000+ matches against Sheik/Zelda, I think I know a bit or two about it. ^_^
Here's the way I see a regular match between two experienced Sheik and Olimar players going:
Sheik begins by charging her needles. Olimar pulls his 3 pikmin in .6 seconds and runs over to Sheik to begin his spammage. Olimar outcamps sheik with a combination of throwing pikmin in front of Sheik to disrupt her needles, and throwing pikmin onto sheik to get her to knock them off. She either has trouble with the pikmin and Olimar lands a grab and racks 40%, or she does the right thing and begins to attack the pikmin while attacking Olimar.
She SHnair(to kill pikmin)>jab(so Olimar can't grab, as I explained earlier). This approach can be used over and over and over and over...until she messes up her spacing or she decides to do something else. It can only be countered if the sheik player or the Olimar player messes up her spacing. I see it as GaW's turtle approach, but I can at least shield grab that. >_>
Overall
On the ground, her attacks are fast enough to make it hard for Olimar to land a grab. She can't be on the ground to attack too much though. She can only sprinkle them in. She has to approach via the air before she can attack. Otherwise, Olimar will spam his fast fsmashes and grabs until she is forced to jump. This is where Sheik shines against Olimar's aerial defense.
As you may already know, Olimar's aerials are pretty good. Compared with the other characters, they've got good speed, damage, hitstun(at least yellows do. >_>) and low knockback for stringing attacks together. They don't have very good priority though.(excluding nair) This is a very common misconception. Below, Fishkeeper Timmy summed up the physics of Olimar's pikmin attacks better than I could. This applies to ALL of Olimar's pikmin attacks: upair, dair, fair, upsmash, fsmash, dsmash, and pikmin throw. My comments are in white.
Priority...>.> It's a mix of Range, speed, and how much collision 2 hitboxes are exposed during the attack.
since pikmin have speed and range and collision 1 hitboxes, they have "priority".
I think a brief recap of how attacks work is needed.
They will "clank" only if the the two hitboxes meet at the exact same point, at the exact same time and no hurtbox is threatened. You "trade hits" when attacks hit the same place at the same time, and both hurtboxes are threatened. If two attacks meet and one hurtbox is threatened, whilst the other is not, the attack that doesn't have a threatened hurtbox wins. This is why Disjointed characters have such high priority.
Olimar's Pikmin are unique because they are the only projectiles that have a hurtbox and a hitbox. All other projectiles have no hurtbox. So, to outprioritize a Pikmin, you can't use the same approach as a projectile to clank. You have to hit the Pikmin before it hits you, which is extremely easy if you have disjointed hitboxes, but it is supremely hard if you do not.
Not exactly difficult, but it makes it a lot easier.
Actually, they have no priority because if anything hits them, they lose the clash. They even lose to poor jabs like Zamus'. The issue is hitting them. Most characters don't have the speed to hit a pikmin before it hits your hurtbox, so it seems they have huge priority.
This is what applies to sheik. The hitboxes on her attacks come out VERY quick, and makes it much easier to kill the poor pikmin and attack Olimar at the same time. Sheik's jump and her attacks are quick enough for you to be able to time your attacks so that they'll clank with Olimar's, and go through the pikmin to hit Olimar on the other side. All but Olimar's upair. This aerial is kinda weird. It'll clank with your attacks, but since it's multihit, it'll have "priority" over your attacks for some reason. Your dair will go through it though. Strange huh?
Only characters with large disjointed hitboxes are generally capable of hitting pikmin before they can collide with your hurtboxes.
Edgeguarding
Olimar's recovery isn't very good, but it's enough to make it somewhat difficult for Sheik to edgegaurd/hog.
Olimar
-Can be edgehogged, but your timing has to be good against a good Olimar. Olimar's tether is the longest of every tether recovery in the game. This means that there's a large window of opportunity I have to latch. If you time your roll back to stage too early, I'll wait a second before I latch. On fd, Olimar can latch back to the stage from below the screen. It's that long. If you don't roll quickly enough, I'll spike you to your death. If I have a white or purple in front, I'll latch to the stage, and you'll die. If not, we both die.
-Olimar can save his second jump. He's very floaty, so most of the time, he'll be able to get back to the stage with/o having to use his second jump. This leads me to my next point.
-Olimar's whistle has super armor frames. If I'm forced to use my second jump to get back, I'm probably recovering from below. The SA in the whistle is more than enough to avoid gimping(not edgehogging) almost entirely.
-Pikmin chain gives Olimar a slight boost. Often times, this gives Olimar enough of a jump to get back to the stage without being edgehogged. It has a hitbox, and if timed right, you'll get spiked. It also has some sort of strange uber priority, where no attack will clank with it. If Olimar is hit during it though, it won't give him the priority. I'd compare it with his grab.
-Pikmin can be thrown to get you off the edge. If I've got a purple up next, it'll knock you off, clearing an open ledge for Olimar. If I've got a white, and I'm too far from the stage to make it back, I'll go ahead and throw it onto you to rack 10-25% easily.
-Regular attacks to knock you off. This is simple. If I'm close enough to attack you while you hang, I will. I'll knock you off, and latch two seconds later with my extremely long tether.
Shrinkray has a nice combo video that includes some of these tactics that I've explained above:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9qxZc67rnc
Edit: This thread should be stickied.
