Sheik Changes?

[RedEyesWhiteSwaggin]

Can anyone confirm that there will be Sheik changes in 3.5?

I'm not interested in hearing how she's still good or starting an argument. Shes garbage. The fact are: her reliable kill options (fair, bair, uair, dsmash) are literally the worst in the game in terms of killing percent, her only kill option that compares to most of the cast in terms of kill percentages is tippered upsmash, she has no true followups off of a grab like most characters do (she cannot even force a guess as bthrow can be reacted to), and her recovery is pretty easily the worst in the game except for maybe Tink/Ness.

Again, not looking for an argument just wondering if anything has been confirmed.

Edit: I would like to be proven wrong concerning her kill options/recovery but I have yet to have anyone even try

 

[Juushichi]

not looking for an argument, but want to be proven wrong, eh?

but you're not interested in hearing about it?

ok, i won't tell you lol

 

[4tlas]

I haven't heard anything about changes, but she is definitely being indirectly buffed because other characters are getting nerfed recoveries, which Sheik will be able to edgeguard better. On the other hand, this may result in an overall indirect nerf because everyone gets to edgeguard better, and Sheik already does pretty well here. We'll have to see.

I'm not going to argue with you about how she is now, but it takes two to tango. If you actually didn't want to start an argument, you shouldn't immediately follow up such a statement with your strongly worded opinion. It just gives the opportunity for someone to argue with you, when, if you really didn't want to, you could have just not given anyone the opportunity.

 

[dizzypink]

Do you play on the Wiimiifi servers? I'll prove you wrong if there's not too much janky lag. Sheik is a great glass cannon balance of speed and terrifying stage control if she's played right.

 

[RedEyesWhiteSwaggin]

not looking for an argument, but want to be proven wrong, eh?

but you're not interested in hearing about it?

ok, i won't tell you lol

Sorry, I realize that could be misleading. What I mean is that I am not interested in hearing repeatedly that sheik is good because she can do things with no backing whatsoever. Yes I realize she has options, she can outplay people, and the tier gap is a lot smaller compared to other smash games. Now that someone has fulfilled the primary purpose of this thread, I would love to hear your take on it.

The facts (as I see them, and it would be nice if I were mistaken/delusional) are:

1 Her kill options are absolute garbage. They all rank the absolute bottom of any character. A friend of mine has tested just about every kill move in the game and sheiks are easily the worst. I would like this to be wrong but I have confirmed the results myself. These results can be seen here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...SkN6Q1RoclFkYTNiZDBvcUxucGc&usp=sharing#gid=0 (Note: up and diagonal kills were tested on ground level DL64 against mario, horizontal kills were tested on Dracula's from center stage against Peach. They were done in vs mode to avoid any weird CPU DI in training (if that's still a thing) and they were done without DI as that would create a LOT of variance.

2. Her recovery is easily bottom 5 if not the worst in terms of distance, options, and landing lag.

3. Her grab is good but her throws are garbage. I cannot for the life of me understand why the PMBR would take her dthrow away and then give it to just about everyone else ie give the majority of the cast guaranteed follow ups off of grabs. You can react to the bthrow mixup. Against anyone experienced in the matchup you should never get any follow ups after grab.EDIT Confirmed with SB that f/b throw release on the same frame so it is a mixup. I still have a feeling that you can react to bthrow based on your character changing sides but I'll have to test it. I still hold that her throws are notably worse than a LOT of the characters i.e. they do not give guaranteed follups/kills ex: Mario, Link, Tink, Gdorf, Pit, Snake, MK, Sonic(?), CF, etc or kill like M2/Lucas.

4. Her offstage/gimp game (a core reason she is top tier in melee) is absolutely outshined by the absurd recoveries and offstage games of many characters (this may change in 3.5)

Edit: 5. Her weight/fall speed combination is also one of the worst in the game.

On the kill moves, you might argue that as a utility based gimpling character she does should not kill early. Lets look at a few examples.

Upwards uair and usmash (not tippered) kill around 160 according to my info. Characters like Peach, Ness, Tink, M2,and Kirby have aerials/throws that kill 10% earlier and are not heavy hitters. Characters like Lucario, Luigi, ROB, Lucas, Wario, and Pit have usmashes/throws/up b that kill 20% earlier. And no, these are not cherrypicked. They are reliable kill moves that can be combo'd into. Several characters have secondary or tertiary kill moves that kill 10-20% earlier than her primary ones AND they have better offstage games than her. These are just a FEW examples.

I could do the same with horizontal kill moves but I doubt that would add anything (sheik again ranks at the bottom).

If your counter argument is based on the fact she CAN do things and she is not horrrible then you do not understand tiers/fighting games. The point is she has fewer options/worse kill moves than the rest of the cast. She may not be the absolute worst but she is certainly in the bottom percentile.

Edit: I would also like to hear @Umbreon 's take on this if he feels like it as he is one of the few people I can say I actually agree with on the way sheik is meant to be played and balance in general.

 

[RedEyesWhiteSwaggin]

Do you play on the Wiimiifi servers? I'll prove you wrong if there's not too much janky lag. Sheik is a great glass cannon balance of speed and terrifying stage control if she's played right.

Beating me would prove nothing and is pretty irrelevant in this discussion. She is nowhere near a glass cannon but that is also unimportant.

 

[foxygrandpa]

I agree that she definitely can't contest with the current top tiers when theyre played well. The mewtwo matchup in particular is utter trash, far worse than jiggs or ICs in melee. She's not absolute garbage though, she can compete with all the fair characters. Aside from the top 8 or 9 characters, this game is pretty well balanced. With the top characters getting nerfed and recoveries getting nerfed, she'll be much better relatively.
Lets, be honest, the melee dthrow was boring. I agree in saying that everyone else's throws are kind of over the top, but the last thing I would like from this game is a character that chaingrabs the cast to death. I'd like to see some of the other throws like pit's, MK and link lose their guaranteed throw combos. At least the ice climbers have other skills involved with their chaingrabs, and i dont even think they're designed well. The only thing that makes me a little annoyed about her throws is the fact that holding down prevents her from properly following up.
Tippered upsmash is a great kill option as you said, and bthrow is a good setup for it against an opponent not suspecting a bthrow. With all the recoveries getting nerfed, i imagine killing at low percents being easier for her. And I might be wrong here, but I remember reading somewhere that bthrow and dthrow were the same frame? It would be nice if someone could clarify on that.
Also, dont forget that dacus is back, and she'll have a great one considering how her dash attack currently works.

One thing that I would really like to see is some sort of utility for uthrow. Also, the reliance on crouch cancelling in the meta is ridiculous, and sheik is by far the most affected by it. The roy matchup makes me rage pretty hard in particular. he gets once cc dtilt and its a stock. She's not great in the current meta, but with everything changing balance wise, I have some faith.

 

[RedEyesWhiteSwaggin]

I agree that she definitely can't contest with the current top tiers when theyre played well. The mewtwo matchup in particular is utter trash, far worse than jiggs or ICs in melee. She's not absolute garbage though, she can compete with all the fair characters. Aside from the top 8 or 9 characters, this game is pretty well balanced. With the top characters getting nerfed and recoveries getting nerfed, she'll be much better relatively.
Lets, be honest, the melee dthrow was boring. I agree in saying that everyone else's throws are kind of over the top, but the last thing I would like from this game is a character that chaingrabs the cast to death. I'd like to see some of the other throws like pit's, MK and link lose their guaranteed throw combos. At least the ice climbers have other skills involved with their chaingrabs, and i dont even think they're designed well. The only thing that makes me a little annoyed about her throws is the fact that holding down prevents her from properly following up.
Tippered upsmash is a great kill option as you said, and bthrow is a good setup for it against an opponent not suspecting a bthrow. With all the recoveries getting nerfed, i imagine killing at low percents being easier for her. And I might be wrong here, but I remember reading somewhere that bthrow and dthrow were the same frame? It would be nice if someone could clarify on that.
Also, dont forget that dacus is back, and she'll have a great one considering how her dash attack currently works.

One thing that I would really like to see is some sort of utility for uthrow. Also, the reliance on crouch cancelling in the meta is ridiculous, and sheik is by far the most affected by it. The roy matchup makes me rage pretty hard in particular. he gets once cc dtilt and its a stock. She's not great in the current meta, but with everything changing balance wise, I have some faith.

Yeah tipper usmash is amazing in terms of its kill power. However its extremely unreliable and hard to set up. That would be great if there weren't moves like GW, Pika, Ivy, and Fox's usmash and Luigi's up b that killed at around the same percent and are extremely easy to set up. Not only that but her untippered killed 50% later! thats ****ing ridiculous.

Melee dthrow was great on the characters that mattered, it gave guaranteed damage and potential for follow up. Note I am NOT wishing or trying to justify her CGs on lowtiers.

Bthrow and Dthrow have the exact same send and maybe DIability afaik. Dthrow is sped up from melee and bthrow is largely the same. Bthrow CAN be reacted to so DIing down and away for dthrow then reacting to bthrow guarantees you won't give sheik any follow ups afaik.

 

[foxygrandpa]

Yeah tipper usmash is amazing in terms of its kill power. However its extremely unreliable and hard to set up. That would be great if there weren't moves like GW, Pika, Ivy, and Fox's usmash and Luigi's up b that killed at around the same percent and are extremely easy to set up. Not only that but her untippered killed 50% later! thats ****ing ridiculous.

Melee dthrow was great on the characters that mattered, it gave guaranteed damage and potential for follow up. Note I am NOT wishing or trying to justify her CGs on lowtiers.

Bthrow and Dthrow have the exact same send and maybe DIability afaik. Dthrow is sped up from melee and bthrow is largely the same. Bthrow CAN be reacted to so DIing down and away for dthrow then reacting to bthrow guarantees you won't give sheik any follow ups afaik.

Dtilt sets up for upsmash on a lot of the heavier characters at like 70 percent ish. It usually kills too. It works well on melee marth peach and sheik as well.
The people I play with often are pretty good and Im yet to meet anyone who could consistently react to my backthrow. Not necessarily disagreeing with you, but I always thought that dthrow and bthrow were both frame 16 or something like that. Debug mode will help us with that though I guess. If thats true though, thats pretty disappointing.
On some floaty characters like mario, m2, and ness, you can still regrab on proper DI if you boost grab. The only way out is to DI upwards. If they DI upwards and towards you, you can walk forward and hit with upsmash if you're fast. Otherwise, you can follow up with fair into regrab on heavyweights or upair to send them into a bad position. I'm kind of content with sheik's grab game as it is though. I really like playing her the way she is, the only real problems Ive ran into are recovery, crouch cancelling, and blatantly broken characters.
One thing I would love to see in sheik is usable specials and maybe separation from zelda.

 

[mimgrim]

You have to be a troll. That's the only explanation that I can come up with for all the misinformation your are spouting.

 

[4tlas]

Well now we're discussing what makes Sheik "not good" but also "not suck"? I can do that lol

Her moveset does not have any options that beat out the rest, and I don't think she has the best of anything in the game. She has one of the worst recoveries, and her kill moves are not that powerful. Her neutral game is ok, but her combo game is very good. I think she is pretty well rounded, as her deficiencies can be overcome with careful play but her strengths are not overbearing. And being well-rounded is an advantage, as it gives you more options.

Her weaknesses (bad recovery and lack of kill options) can be played around. Using her speed and quick attacks, you can avoid being hit offstage in the first place, and her combos allow you to quickly rack up enough damage to turn her non-kill moves into launchers. From there you probably have to edgeguard, which is indeed difficult against the best recoveries but is still good against everything else.

She has a problem against crouch-cancelling, but that can be countered with grabs (of which Sheik's are excellent). Her down and back throw have very low knockback growth so you can combo out of them, which is what Sheik does best. I believe they come out on the same frame, but the problem with back throw being easier to DI might be the animation. It probably differentiates itself from the grab position quickly due to moving their character to her other side, causing people to recognize it earlier and then have a longer reaction window.

I think only 2 things are holding Sheik back from being a good (in design terms, I think she's perhaps a tiny bit below average tierwise, which is fine) character. Her chain has no real use (it can't hit aerial opponents with the damaging tip, so you can't even gimp at the ledge with it anymore) and her up and forward throws are pretty bad. If they could make the chain hit aerial opponents that would be good, or they could just do something else entirely. Her up throw can combo but its so slow. Her forward throw launches them far enough you can't follow up but never becomes a kill move, and even at the ledge doesn't put them far enough away from the stage to give her a good edgeguard.

 

[RedEyesWhiteSwaggin]

You have to be a troll. That's the only explanation that I can come up with for all the misinformation your are spouting.

Do some testing then come back to me (I assume you are talking about kill percentages since that's the only truly specific data I am "spouting").

Dtilt sets up for upsmash on a lot of the heavier characters at like 70 percent ish. It usually kills too.

If you happen to be able to get the tipper. Also I doubt it kills on most stages unless they're floaty too.

The people I play with often are pretty good and Im yet to meet anyone who could consistently react to my backthrow. Not necessarily disagreeing with you, but I always thought that dthrow and bthrow were both frame 16 or something like that. Debug mode will help us with that though I guess. If thats true though, thats pretty disappointing.

I have been told by BR's and reliable people that you can react to bthrow. I could have misread/been misinformed tho. I don't have a problem reacting to it the few times I do sheik dittos.

On some floaty characters like mario, m2, and ness, you can still regrab on proper DI if you boost grab. The only way out is to DI upwards. If they DI upwards and towards you, you can walk forward and hit with upsmash if you're fast. Otherwise, you can follow up with fair into regrab on heavyweights or upair to send them into a bad position. .

By proper DI do you mean down AND away? The combination is extremely important. I have never gotten follow ups other than tech chases with down and away DI.

 

[RedEyesWhiteSwaggin]

Her moveset does not have any options that beat out the rest, and I don't think she has the best of anything in the game. She has one of the worst recoveries, and her kill moves are not that powerful. Her neutral game is ok, but her combo game is very good. I think she is pretty well rounded, as her deficiencies can be overcome with careful play but her strengths are not overbearing. And being well-rounded is an advantage, as it gives you more options.

So she has one of the worst recoveries, some of the worst kill moves, an OK neutral, and a good combo game and you think shes well rounded? What other qualities are you taking into account? Reliable killing options and recovery are easily some of the most important aspects of a character.

Her down and back throw have very low knockback growth so you can combo out of them, which is what Sheik does best.

Not with proper DI.

 

[mimgrim]

I've actually been playing the game against actual people and can comfortably get kills in the 110%-130% range against most of the cast. Even on a stage such as Dreamland and not taking edge guarding into account. Her kill options are fine.

Bthrow isn't humanly reactable if the Sheik player is mixing up Dthrow/Bthrow properly as the throws have similar start-up animations and same speed I believe. That said. DI down covers both throws anyways. These 2 throws are more about positional advantage in this game. And there is rarely a reason to ever use the other 2 throws.

Recovery isn't that important to a character. And Sheik's is fine. It's how other recoveries should be. It good enough to get her back after going out for an edge guard, that is what matters the most.

Sheik is fine. Stop whining and stop trying to play her like you would in Melee.

 

[RedEyesWhiteSwaggin]

I've actually been playing the game against actual people and can comfortably get kills in the 110%-130% range against most of the cast. Even on a stage such as Dreamland and not taking edge guarding into account. Her kill options are fine.

Oh ok, more baseless anecdotal evidence with no desire for actual testing. Sounds good :/

>recovery isn't that imporant to a character
So you're saying that surviving is not that important to a character in a game about surviving?

Edit: I agree its more like recoveries SHOULD be: risky and punishable. That does NOT mean it is how recoveries ARE.

 

[foxygrandpa]

I do believe you can follow up with a boost grab if its both down and away, but Ive only been playing melee and smash 4 recently so Im not 100 percent on that. I remember doing it on a lot of people in tournament though, so Im pretty sure.

 

[4tlas]

So she has one of the worst recoveries, some of the worst kill moves, an OK neutral, and a good combo game and you think shes well rounded? What other qualities are you taking into account? Reliable killing options and recovery are easily some of the most important aspects of a character.


Not with proper DI.

I listed the other qualities. She has quick moves and quick movement, which means she always has options. Her moves don't take much commitment time-wise, and in a game about positional advantages, Sheik's speed allows her to both threaten a large area and avoid threats.

Not with proper DI is a terrible reason to say something is "bad" when its hard to DI consistently. Besides, you can get a followup regardless of DI in most situations, it might just not be the optimal one.

Maybe youre playing godlike robots and I'm playing scrubs, but I don't get the impression that Sheik has no tools that work. And my Sheik is not good.

 

[mimgrim]

Oh ok, more baseless anecdotal evidence with no desire for actual testing. Sounds good :/

>recovery isn't that imporant to a character
So you're saying that surviving is not that important to a character in a game about surviving?

Edit: I agree its more like recoveries SHOULD be: risky and punishable. That does NOT mean it is how recoveries ARE.

I see no reason to test when that is the average for when I play. Not to mention the way of testing you listed is pretty bad in the first place. You went to 2 of the stage with some of the biggest blastzones/ceiling and didn't take into account medium or small ones. Not to mention you tested killing Peach horizontally when she is a floaty who is better off killed vertically then horizontally. I have never ever felt a lack of kill power from Sheik. And I'm a pretty bad player as well, at least compared to the main people I play against.

There is more to surviving then just through recovering. Otherwise Falco would be a horrible character. Her recovery is a good one in terms of design, and PMDT has already address that they are going to be designing recoveries to be more like this for 3.5.

She has good mobility, is a really good tech chaser, she has quick, simple, and intuitive combos that can tack on a good bit of damage, despite the amount of great recoveries in this game she is still one of the best edge guarders in the game and can edge guard most of the cast reliably well, she has a good projectile, and just good moves in general. She is fine.

 

[ThreeSided]

People have trouble killing with Sheik? That's the least of my problems. Fair is ridiculous. Even if it doesn't kill gimping is just so easy. Besides, the damage racks up so quickly as sheik that getting them to 150 isn't even hard.

I don't want to jump on the troll bandwagon, but I'm a little bit perplexed by the discussion.

 

[Missile]

Sheik, like all the other Melee top tiers, won't get any kind of enhancements or positive treatment. I feel pretty confident about that, sadly. However if someone happens to do well with them, they'll gladly get nerfed.

 

[RedEyesWhiteSwaggin]

I see no reason to test when that is the average for when I play. Not to mention the way of testing you listed is pretty bad in the first place. You went to 2 of the stage with some of the biggest blastzones/ceiling and didn't take into account medium or small ones. Not to mention you tested killing Peach horizontally when she is a floaty who is better off killed vertically then horizontally. I have never ever felt a lack of kill power from Sheik. And I'm a pretty bad player as well, at least compared to the main people I play against.

She is also light which happens to mean she will die early horizontally which makes her a fine testing subject. The point of using the highest and widest stages for the vertical and horizontal kill moves was entirely on purpose. Using the largest blast zones will get he largest spread of kill percentages. No, of course it doesn't mean that sheik is unable to kill until 150 on most stages. However, it does mean that she will kill later than the vast majority of the cast on every stage.

There is more to surviving then just through recovering. Otherwise Falco would be a horrible character. Her recovery is a good one in terms of design, and PMDT has already address that they are going to be designing recoveries to be more like this for 3.5.

>Here I am assuming you're saying "Falco is a good character even though he has a bad recovery." I don't know what differentiation you are making between surviving and recovering as they seem intimately related to me.

Just because falco's recovery is shortish does not at all mean it is bad. Falco is good because he can get 70+% on every character off of a hit without any real reads or resets and the only hope of getting out of it is some excellent smash DI. Falco's up b is bad alone but it an option. His side b is an absolutely amazing recovery. Sheiks up b is her only option, has many times the landing lag of either of falco's options, cant be edge cancelled, can be covered by one option, and is still roughly the same length as falco.

So here you're not going to convince me that Sheik is a good character because Falco, a character with significanlty better recovery options, combos, damage, and a spike, is good.

EDIT: While I do believe the PMBR will tone down a lot of recoveries, that does NOT mean they will be making more recoveries like sheik's. No character in the game afaik has anywhere near the landing lag on an up b and they have not at all mentioned they will be adjusting landing lags afaik. No character I can think of has such **** air control/momentum after an up b.

She has good mobility, is a really good tech chaser, she has quick, simple, and intuitive combos that can tack on a good bit of damage, despite the amount of great recoveries in this game she is still one of the best edge guarders in the game and can edge guard most of the cast reliably well, she has a good projectile, and just good moves in general. She is fine.

You (and everyone who has ever tried to say sheik is still good) act like these are unique things. There are very few characters I can think of that don't have moves on par damage wise or better with Sheik, moves that are as quick or quicker with considerably more power, throws that have guaranteed follow ups or tech chases, and significantly better offstage games.

Literally (I'm sure there are a few exceptions), all of the top 15 I can think of have some or all of these traits AND they outclass sheik offstage/edgeguarding. This is not to mention the overwhelming majority of the cast kills sooner and recovers better.

 

[mimgrim]

Ok. I'm done. There is no way you aren't a troll.

 

[4tlas]

Ok, how about something that might be the best in the game? Her crouch! Its almost the shortest, can crawl, and has (I think...oh wait Samus) the best crouch/crawl attack?

Oh and needles may be the best gimping projectile in the game. Not the best for edgeguarding or killing offstage, but the best gimper, I think.

 

[jtm94]

Tested she definitely has follow ups out of grabs not even accounting for the different throws. She has an incredibly good dash attack which extends combos, a great jab, and even better tilts. I don't know what you want or how you want to be proven.

 

[Strong Badam]

Dthrow and Bthrow both release on the same frame, they are not reactable.

 

[Missile]

Ok, how about something that might be the best in the game? Her crouch! Its almost the shortest, can crawl, and has (I think...oh wait Samus) the best crouch/crawl attack?

Oh and needles may be the best gimping projectile in the game. Not the best for edgeguarding or killing offstage, but the best gimper, I think.

Snake's crawl is the best, his crawl attack is the best. Needles are good, we'll agree on that, regardless of the nerf they got.

 

[Missile]

Tested she definitely has follow ups out of grabs not even accounting for the different throws. She has an incredibly good dash attack which extends combos, a great jab, and even better tilts. I don't know what you want or how you want to be proven.

Depending on the character you're facing as Sheik, DI is a make or break for her. If you properly DI her throws with, say, Diddy Kong, she has no follow up.

Hell, she already has limited followups with Marth, Mario, Luigi, Samus (that I can think of off the top of my head) if they do bad DI on Bthrow because the DI inwards raises them enough to be able to react with a jump.

Jab: CC it then grab her.

Tilts: CC them. Just about any character has a punish after CCing her ftilt or dtilt.

Dash Attack: It extends combos on Fox, Falco, Wolf, Captain Falcon, Roy and maybe Snake. Almost every other character gets out of a combo if you try to extend it with dash attack.

 

[jtm94]

She's the one character who doesn't have a dumb throw on a fastfaller, but it still forces a tech at least. and dash attack leads into fair on a number of characters. Dtilt leads into fair at almost any % and when too low it leads in to grab. Downsmash and grab are an out to CCing.

We can play this game about there being outs to everything. Might as well sum it up as Sheik is terrible if your opponent doesn't get hit.

 

[EmptySky00]

Can anyone confirm that there will be Sheik changes in 3.5?

I'm not interested in hearing how she's still good or starting an argument. Shes garbage. The fact are: her reliable kill options (fair, bair, uair, dsmash) are literally the worst in the game in terms of killing percent, her only kill option that compares to most of the cast in terms of kill percentages is tippered upsmash, she has no true followups off of a grab like most characters do (she cannot even force a guess as bthrow can be reacted to), and her recovery is pretty easily the worst in the game except for maybe Tink/Ness.

Again, not looking for an argument just wondering if anything has been confirmed.

Edit: I would like to be proven wrong concerning her kill options/recovery but I have yet to have anyone even try

You have absolutely no credibility right out of the gate. That's hilarious.

My response is that you're terrible and you should get good instead of trying to have a great character buffed to stupidity to remedy your own goddamn inadequate skill level.

 

[foxygrandpa]

The only issues I find with playing sheik are issues with other people's characters. Her design is perfect the way she is, not to mention dacus is going to open up a bunch of options for her. In fact, I kind of like her new throw system better than the NTSC dthrow. She's fair in a game full of OP recoveries and kill options that she somewhat lacks. I really want her to stay the same. As of now, the top characters are just too ridiculous to handle for her, and she loses to nearly all of them, but if theyre all getting tweaked, she'll be fine.

The only real issue I find with playing her that Im not sure 3.5 will remedy is crouch cancelling. PM's metagame is far more CC heavt than melee's was due to new heavy characters being viable and people with dumb dtilts. Characters like pit and roy's dtilts are ridiculously powerful against her. Roy in particular frustrates me. Theoretically, snake's crouch would invalidate most of her options, as you can't grab him while crouching and his weight allows him to CC for so long, but I don't think its practical to crouch that often.

Overall though, 3.5 sheik will be absolutely perfect in my opinion.

 

[Deleted member]

Edit: I would also like to hear @Umbreon 's take on this if he feels like it as he is one of the few people I can say I actually agree with on the way sheik is meant to be played and balance in general.

i apologize for missing the tag, i was linked to this thread via jtm94. first, pardon the incredible bias in this thread from both sides, several members of my playgroup have already posted here and are appropriately of differing opinions of what has been said already. secondly, i do not believe that you are trolling in any way, i disagree with your evaluation on my character and will attempt to give you my honest point of view.

first, although alluring it is imperative to appreciate sheik as her own character in PM and not as a repeat of her character in melee. i say this because how she functionally plays out differs drastically once you reach higher level play with the character. i'll try to keep this brief, but keep in mind this discussion could be much more lengthy very easily:

1. throws are meant to establish position. i cannot stress this difference enough. for melee sheik, the grab is the primary conversion, and you simply go through the motions to determine your punishment game. pm sheik does not do this at all. pm sheik uses throws similar to melee marth, where you use position to ease into grab for your conversion as per normal, however your throw must be used to retain position. for example, i never try to use the downthrow/bthrow "mixup", i believe that standard aspects to fighting games such as reads, prediction, mindgames, playing smart, playstyle, and other hocus pocus are all arbitrary misleading poppycock borne of some masturbatory fantasy of crappy players. i am quite open about this stance. you want to kill people? do **** that always works. if you use throws to put your opponent somewhere horrible and keep them there the entire stock, it is often better than having a reliable throw > aerial that may allow them to reset to neutral. for this reason, i actually prefer sheik's throws in PM. i just throw people wherever will put them into the worst position. for sheik, that is always off the edge, or anything that will allow the opponent to DI to the edge where i can sheik them assuming they DI "correctly" (lol). you know how great it is when every grab means i get to play sheik_at_the_edge? i assure you it feels better than melee sheik's dthrow in the middle of DL64 ever was. imo this alone is enough to totally differentiate pm sheik enough from her melee counterpart to the point where they have nothing in common.

2. sheik can move with crouch while buffering ASDI and/or CC. ever thought sheik's crouch was annoying? yeah, now its a movement option. in a game where 75% of the cast has a good projectile, being able to crawl in and out of WD or OOS or in and out of dash or dashgrab is the final piece of the puzzle to make sheik's ground game amazing. atm my only problem with sheik's ground game is that crouch is a bit too good against her, but even that is only to a point. in practical application it is invaluable. AC aerials (nair fair bair upair all AC out of SH) allows buffer crawl as a means to make already ridiculous aerials even more obnoxiously safe. this translates into free harassment with aerials to a grounded opponent, something that is usually HORRIBLE in all of the previous smash games. sheik is the safest character for aerial to ground conversions since melee peach. safer than falco low dair > shine. proper use of crawl allows for tons of free harassment and pressure to create a neutral game that is both specific to her in PM, but also specific to her over any of the smash games. giving a WD based ground character a safe means to harass other opponents is a godsend because usually only this can only be done by characters with a good DD, but sheik sidesteps this rule entirely.

3. in terms of balance, i personally rank sheik at appx 12th out of 41 *so far*. that said, my opinion changes on the matter often. sheik really does have two problems though. the first is that she is in the 75% of the cast that isn't stupid, and is therefore relatively bad because egregiously strong characters exist in the same game, such as mewtwo pit diddy sonic etc. without these characters, assuming them to be fixed/removed, i do consider sheik a top tier rather openly, as the other "fair" characters in the normal 75% of the cast can do a whole lot of nothing about her. however, secondly and more importantly, sheik's primary and optimized method of play functionally requires her to be reactive because she lacks a reliable action > action sequence for pressure that allows her to conserve momentum. ever see fox do a nairplane? sheik can only do an AC aerial > movement option but it doesnt actually pressure the opponent after the aerial unless you go back to a reactionary stance and fish for something. this is not real pressure though. sheik does not have a uniform "A Game" against the cast at large the same way say Falco does. when you pick falco, you know you're going to do laser dair shine, in and out of other stuff, but lets be real here that is what falco is going to do. sheik has nothing like this. instead, sheik must know how to actually play against every character and learn how to maintain positional advantage once she has it. which she usually can, but it still requires a ton of MU-specific experience most of the time. some characters are luigi and you can manhandle them and some are sonic and you can't actually maintain position, but most of the cast falls in between those two categories. actually learning 41 MUs is a very real barrier to entry on a competitive scene.

im tired of typing so im going to call it a night. i'll come back to check this out over the weekend though. this should be enough to get the proverbial ball rolling.

 

[RedEyesWhiteSwaggin]

Ok, how about something that might be the best in the game? Her crouch! Its almost the shortest, can crawl, and has (I think...oh wait Samus) the best crouch/crawl attack?

Oh and needles may be the best gimping projectile in the game. Not the best for edgeguarding or killing offstage, but the best gimper, I think.

Crouch is definitely legit. What you said about needles MAY be true in 3.5. I absolutely disagree as of now though. With decent SDI upwards needles can actually help/have little effect on a lot of recoveries. They do function to buy you time to position yourself better assuming the opponent's recovery is not that fast, which a lot are. This is basically moot until we have 3.5

Tested she definitely has follow ups out of grabs not even accounting for the different throws. She has an incredibly good dash attack which extends combos, a great jab, and even better tilts. I don't know what you want or how you want to be proven.

She definitely does not have guaranteed follow ups off of throw. I confirmed with SB and the only one he mentioned was sometimes DA worked as a followup on floaties even with proper DI. So unless he is mistaken, your testing is.

The only issues I find with playing sheik are issues with other people's characters. Her design is perfect the way she is, not to mention dacus is going to open up a bunch of options for her. In fact, I kind of like her new throw system better than the NTSC dthrow. She's fair in a game full of OP recoveries and kill options that she somewhat lacks. I really want her to stay the same. As of now, the top characters are just too ridiculous to handle for her, and she loses to nearly all of them, but if theyre all getting tweaked, she'll be fine.

The only real issue I find with playing her that Im not sure 3.5 will remedy is crouch cancelling. PM's metagame is far more CC heavt than melee's was due to new heavy characters being viable and people with dumb dtilts. Characters like pit and roy's dtilts are ridiculously powerful against her. Roy in particular frustrates me. Theoretically, snake's crouch would invalidate most of her options, as you can't grab him while crouching and his weight allows him to CC for so long, but I don't think its practical to crouch that often.

Overall though, 3.5 sheik will be absolutely perfect in my opinion.

I definitely agree. The fact that she has the worst kill options may not be noticeable if she can actually gimp in 3.5. I would not at all say she'll be perfect in 3.5 unless she has a usable side b/reasonable recovery.

 

[Deleted member]

i have no problem gimping non mario diddy mewtwo characters right now. homies confirm?

 

[RedEyesWhiteSwaggin]

@Umbreon

1. I agree that these are what sheik's throws are best used for in this game. I also think that this is a good design for throws. That does not mean that is what a lot of characters throws do. I just did a cursory count of the 41 charcters and afaik 26 of them have guaranteed follow ups on the majority of fall speeds/weights. This is not counting the ones that have guaranteed follow ups only against ff'ers or whatever. Even if this count is off, there is a LOT of them. Unfortunately sheik cannot reliably get people off stage except for maybe fthrow which does not allow you to move quickly afterwards afaik. Even right next to the edge a bthrow will not reliably put people offstage as they can just DI down/on stage. Bthrow was HUGE in the melee FFer matchup.

2. I also agree that crouch is great and opens up a lot of options for her. It means you can do more than 1/2 hits on shield and give a lot of options after a fair on shield or what have you.

3. I definitely don't agree with that ranking but I would be curious to see who you put above/below.


I do genuinely appreciate all of the opinions/info shared here even the rather rude ones; however, I am seeing nothing to convince me that a character with the worst (or bottom 3ish) recovery, the worst kill options, and poor weight/fall speed is anywhere near top tier in a game about killing, surviving, and getting out of combos. Things that make characters top tier in smash games are good recovery and reliable kill options. This isn't written in stone as characters like melee sheik could compensate her lacking recovery (which was still better than a lot of characters) with her dominance off stage.

Sheik definitely doesn't have much of anything to compensate for her lack of kill options/recovery in PM imo. Yes she can combo: the overwhelming majority of the cast have extremely strong combo games (I would only not count Bowser, Peach, Zelda, Tink, Samus, and olimar maybe; these characters other things sure but I wouldn't say their combo game is strong). Yes she is fast and has good normals; again, so does most of the cast. She also has a few unique things that are good like crouch mixups and needles which are by no means amazing but they're good.

If 3.5 is great and she can gimp well again I would probably agree with your ranking. Even if a lot of the recoveries and throws are addressed in 3.5 I still see no reason for Sheik to have an extremely slow, short, laggy recovery with no mixups and a useless side b but maybe that will change too.

 

[RedEyesWhiteSwaggin]

i have no problem gimping non mario diddy mewtwo characters right now. homies confirm?

I would add to that list some tethers, zard, pit, MK, Link, ROB, and maybe Sonic (dont have much experience with him 3.0+). The problem I have is characters recoveries are so fast/long that once you hit them out of a recovery they can immediately recover again and do so successfully before you can even fully reset (which usually puts you in a bad position considering how slow/laggy her recovery is. In melee characters would be dead like straight up die once hit like Marth if you hit them right (characters that have basically 0 chance of recovery without their double jump or characters that were slow to make another recovery attempt like spacies up b, samus, peach, etc.

 

[Deleted member]

you gave me a lot of content and im on my phone so this is whatever but ive had little mu exp vs rob, but i have no issues edge guarding tethers sonic mk link etc in that list

imo right now my top tier is mewtwo pit diddy sonic, tier 2 is lucas mario fox, tier 3 is falco mk samus ivysaur, and then i put sheik at 11th and link at 12th.

 

[foxygrandpa]

you gave me a lot of content and im on my phone so this is whatever but ive had little mu exp vs rob, but i have no issues edge guarding tethers sonic mk link etc in that list

imo right now my top tier is mewtwo pit diddy sonic, tier 2 is lucas mario fox, tier 3 is falco mk samus ivysaur, and then i put sheik at 11th and link at 12th.

I think Ike, link, snake, wolf, and yoshi are better than sheik.
I main ike and had ridiculous success with him, partially because I think QD is too good of a move, and his uthrow is probably one of the best throws in the game. Also, I agree link is overrated but he still has a better matchup spread than sheik and his zair recovery is sooo broken. Although he lacks in a lot of areas, snake's upthrow over compensates in my opinion. Wolf is probably about even with sheik but I think he's a slightly better character due to him just having such a solid onstage and combo game. Yoshi, I think is godly but Ive never seen anyone use him as well as I think he can be so I could be just flat out wrong on that.

When 3.5 comes out I see sheik (and fox and falco still) being top tier unless the metagame boils down to broken characters again, and I doubt it will. As of now though, I don't think she's even top 15. Probably right outside that though.

And for the record if you have no issue edguarding tethers, you're opponent is doing something wrong. Tethers aren't un-edgeguardable, but they certainly provoke counterplay when the situation should be much more disadvantageous. I don't know if you've played a good link (because most of them are pretty bad), but he's a good example of this. Even if you're dropping with and aerial or needling, a proficient link player could just break the tether, airdodge through you, and tether again. You have to get a read to truly edgeguard him.

 

[jtm94]

I was merely disproving that DI down got everyone out of her throws. DI down as Marth she can still DA and regrab using down and back throw starting at 0%. Yes it works for fastfallers. No she cannot do anything if they DI away, but I would like to see you try to react to the throws and DI correctly. The fact of the matter is that it gives her a 50/50 that leads into her direct KO moves at something greater than 100%. A lot of characters have guaranteed follow-ups out of throws, but they lose those follow ups as % increases. See Marth who has his standard chaingrab and while at moderate percent if you DI bad he can throw into fsmash. Once you get to higher % you barely need to DI and his backthrow is actually reactable, but even on bad DI is so slow he barely gets follow ups. Her throws are fast enough that she can completely capitalize on the advantageous position they yield, and they do not stop working until the opponent is at such an extreme % that they shouldn't be at anyways.

 

[RedEyesWhiteSwaggin]

imo right now my top tier is mewtwo pit diddy sonic, tier 2 is lucas mario fox, tier 3 is falco mk samus ivysaur, and then i put sheik at 11th and link at 12th.

You are absolutely sleeping on Zelda, Marth, Ike, Wario, CF, Pika, Roy, Zard, Kirby, and Lucario imo. Not to say they are all top tier but to say they have more options than sheik.

Side note: all this M2 hype is complete hogwash and matchup inexperience. Whooping (on the ledge) is absolutely stupid and should be fixed but I see most complaints about TP>hover cancelled aerial. Offensive TP>HC aerial is great and all but it can be covered on reaction. The problem is everyone tries to react to where he appears instead of reacting to when he disappears (It takes him 28+ frames to get a hitbox out from TP). I'm not too interested in making a big deal about it because I'm near positive it will be removed and M2 will be pretty bad in 3.5. Before anyone jumps down my throat on this, go watch Emukiller vs Zero. Zero literally punishes every TP in and forces M2 to play the neutral which is nowhere near top tier.

I think Ike, link, snake, wolf, and yoshi are better than sheik.

Absolutely agree with this. I haven't seen many good ikes in recent patches other than VanZ and a buddy of mine who's now playing seibrik (sp?) and silent wolf.

I was merely disproving that DI down got everyone out of her throws.

Gotcha. That wasn't me who said that and it wasn't clear.

 

[foxygrandpa]

You are absolutely sleeping on Zelda, Marth, Ike, Wario, CF, Pika, Roy, Zard, Kirby, and Lucario imo. Not to say they are all top tier but to say they have more options than sheik.

Side note: all this M2 hype is complete hogwash and matchup inexperience. Whooping (on the ledge) is absolutely stupid and should be fixed but I see most complaints about TP>hover cancelled aerial. Offensive TP>HC aerial is great and all but it can be covered on reaction. The problem is everyone tries to react to where he appears instead of reacting to when he disappears (It takes him 28+ frames to get a hitbox out from TP). I'm not too interested in making a big deal about it because I'm near positive it will be removed and M2 will be pretty bad in 3.5. Before anyone jumps down my throat on this, go watch Emukiller vs Zero. Zero literally punishes every TP in and forces M2 to play the neutral which is nowhere near top tier.


Absolutely agree with this. I haven't seen many good ikes in recent patches other than VanZ and a buddy of mine who's now playing seibrik (sp?) and silent wolf.

Gotcha. That wasn't me who said that and it wasn't clear.

zelda is a transparent character imo. She has a giant blind spot midrange, and loses to characters that can approach her fast.
Marth needs help in this game lol he's in the same boat as sheik. He lost good stage picks in a lot of matchups. He has a pretty good matchup spread though.
Wario is amazing if you don't know his mixups but he's probably about as good as sheik. He gets destroyed by long range though.
Captain Falcon? I mean he got a ton of good matchups but his weaknesses are so exploitable. I might be wrong on this because I usually just go sheik against him though.
PIka still has issues with large hitboxes although he is much better. Sheik just doesnt destroy him now.
Zard is pretty good, might be slightly better than sheik but I really don't know.
Everyone seems to like roy but I dont understand why you can't crouch cancel any of his attacks. It's kind of dumb. As far as tiers go I dont really know.
Kirby isn't better than sheik...
Lucario has amazing conversions, but it's actually really easy to shut him out. His neutral is trash and he has no means of approach. He's pretty susceptible to crouch cancel too.

M2 is broken. It's not fake. Zero has better fundamentals than emukiller, and is also using another broken character. I trust that he'll be toned down accordingly considering how long the meta developed for 3.5. Everyone knows what is and isnt stupid at this point.