Smash 4, Character Discussion Thread. #21 Metaknight

[Jedi]

4 Votes

Roy

Sheik

2 Votes

C.Falcon

Robin

1 Vote

Wario

Palutena

Zelda

Edited November 23, 2015 by Jedi

[Knife]

Do Sheik. I have tons of info on her

[Jedi]

With that the tie is broken.

Discussion will be that of Sheik

: "Time passes, people move... Like a river's flow, it never ends..."

Origin: The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time for the N64, later available on the GC, Wii VC and OoT3D

Year: 1998

Developer: Nintendo

VA: Jun Mizusawa

Framedata

RSATD: Sheik's design in the later smash games, is based on a conceptual Twilight Princess piece of art, while not making it into Twilight Princess, Sakurai decided to use the design for her appearance in Brawl and later Smash 4

Where do I even begin? Sheik is a dominating force in this metagame, while not quite as prominent as Pikachu (64), Fox (Melee), or Metaknight (Brawl), her dominance has been quite true.

She has some of the safest attacks in the game, ridiculously good frames, throw combos, the awesome bouncing fish, a chaining fair, her needles which only serve to give her more awesomeness in the neutral game. She has some minor issues killing, but Vanish being buffed into a kill move along with it being able to screw with peoples heads, as well as her amazing off-stage game, counter this flaw.

Sheik is also a blast to play as, such fluid movements, fun combos, but if you're against her, ooooh boy you're in for a ride if they know what they are doing. Her side B was nerfed from being able to grab ledges, but do we really need her to have more recovery?

Discuss Sheik here. I'm sure I'll have more to say as we go along.

[General Horace]

DK's aerial cargo uthrow Needles is are the cancer that is killing Smash 4. That is all.

Seriously I don't actually know much about Sheik since i've never been interested in playing her but i'm always salty playing against her with my heavies because the matchup makes me incredibly sad. When her Fair has more range than some sword users there's something wrong.

[Comet]

sheik has TONS of cool techs. if you side b right as you run off the stage, you can grab the ledge and the grenade still explodes. you can also buffer jabs and any other attacks out of her needle cancel (useful because you can do this out of a run and wavebounce it and stuff and it's super duper fast) which is amazing and probably nearly broken. if you needle cancel right before hitting the ground, you either get soft landing lag or no landing lag. not sure which, probably soft. bouncing fish if used when sheik sort of touches the the stage with her lower half will end in the cartwheel animation which has much less lag than normal bouncing fish landing lag.

needles to bouncing fish is one of my favourite combos. diagonal needles can also be used to force airdodges from characters that need to go low to recover, like marcina. if sheik does this with perfect spacing, marcina can't recover unless they have a double jump.

nobody talks about it but her crouch is an okay way to avoid aerials and higher projectiles. it doesn't go quite low enough to avoid useful normals, sadly.

vanish can autocancel if it ends about 1 sheik height away from the ground. on a side note that's sort of related, i learned that soft landing lag (what you get when you don't do anything or autocancel) for most characters in smash 4 is 2 frames.

sheik also has an aerial interrupt with her double jump. this video can explain what that means.

forward throwing ganon is also fun to do since you can kill him at zero with fair chains to a gimp.

for those that are curious i think fair is -3 or -4 on shield, depending on if it's stale. i don't remember nair but it's safe. pretty sure sheik can do stuff like nair / fair into f tilt or jab to for shield pressure stuff. fair and weak nair are also confirms into bouncing fish, with nair working at kill percent. i bet sheik can also dair ike's up b to spike him and also get hit by his sword so she doesn't die. the sword part probably isn't needed since you can use dair while facing the stage and still spike people off stage (i did this to pkl's meta knight, it was awesome). this is just theorycrafting though.

up tilt also combos into pivot up tilt and grab and anything slower, so i guess f tilt confirm into up air would work (ban T&C against sheik, ban everything actually lol)

Edited November 27, 2015 by PichuMaster3000

[Jedi]

Seriously I don't actually know much about Sheik since i've never been interested in playing her but i'm always salty playing against her with my heavies because the matchup makes me incredibly sad. When her Fair has more range than some sword users there's something wrong.

Oh believe me I know your pain, using Ike vs her is pretty difficult unless you can read her and get close enough, meanwhile I'm getting picked at by needles the entire time.

I'm sure i'll have the same issues with Cloud when he rolls around.

[Knife]

Sheik

Pros:

-Throw combos. I feel like a lot of people overlook this as a strength because they're just getting faired, but throw combos and by extension the ability to threaten shield is what makes her neutral so potent. Most notably fthrow to BF which does 19% unstaled and combos for a very long time on most characters, dthrow to 50/50 uair/vanish, any throw to fair (which combos at low percents and is basically a kill throw at %160+).

-Very good/safe kill setups, mostly with dthrow 50/50, needles to BF, and weak nair to BF.

-Fair out ranges most fairs in the game, is safe on shield, and autocancels at frame 11>, which makes it possible to literally carry people off the blast zone with the assistance of platforms. Always ban Smashville, its not neutral.

-BF is intangible meaning it will beat most moves unless they have a disjoint. Also does 13% and is safe on shield for most characters. BF also lets her escape juggles.

-Needles are honestly a better a zoning tool than most other dedicated zoners (Duck Hunt, Link, Olimar, etc.) have. Why? Because it is transcendent, quick enough to beat reaction time, combos into stuff, is a charge move so it can be stored/shield cancelled into a grab, and catches landings very well. If you have to approach Sheik needle camping, you probably will take some damage.

-Gimps characters very well with a combination of BF, nair, fair, needles, and vanish as well as the ability to go in very deep.

-Very difficult to edge guard because of 3rd jump in BF which also has tons of priority/intangibility) and mostly invincible vanish. For most, your best bet is to either ledge trump, read a getup option, or hit the 2 frame ledge snap. Vanish has a second hitbox+ windbox, and also autocancels at about one Sheik height, so can be difficult to punish onstage.

Cons:

-Low damage per hit, which means she loses trades pretty bad. Most of her normals do less than 8%, but obviously she can get multiple strings in so this is not as bad.

-Bad/mediocre options in Grenade, dair, and utilt (though utilt is getting more use as a kill setup)

-Bad smashes overall, though tipper usmash is surprisingly strong but hard to get without a airdodge read or drifting weak nair.

-Height and fall speed make her susceptible to lots of fast faller combos (not necessarily a weakness exclusive to her).

-Below average weight meaning she gets killed earlier than most. Still heavier than the likes of Mewtwo, Falco, ZSS and Fox. For perspective, she is at 85 while Mario is at 98 weight.

-Most competitive players have lots of MU experience against her because she's so common, though technically not really a con as those Sheiks can very well learn the MU back.

In addition, Sheik has no losing matchups whereas other top tiers have at minimum 1 or 2. She does have matchups that could arguably be considered even based on results: Ryu, Meta Knight, Pikachu, Mario, and ZSS. She's a much tamer #1 than all the other Smash games except 64, but there's no denying she has the best tools in the game. I don't even list lack of kill power as a con because most people at the pro level know that's not true when factoring kill setups. Rather kill at 140% with a offstage fair than kill with a lucky read with Ganon at 70%.

Edited November 27, 2015 by Knife

[Comet]

i think tipper up smash through battlefield platforms should be mentioned

weak nair to footstool is probably a thing or should be a thing

Edited November 27, 2015 by PichuMaster3000

[Knife]

She's good on most neutrals.

-Battlefield because she gets tipper usmash that reaches the platforms

-T&C because it helps her vertically killing capability

-Smashville because she can fair you offstage with the moving platform

-FD because she can needle camp you very well without a platform to help you approach.

If I had to pick one, I'd rather go to Battlefield though.

[Jedi]

sheik has TONS of cool techs. if you side b right as you run off the stage, you can grab the ledge and the grenade still explodes. you can also buffer jabs and any other attacks out of her needle cancel (useful because you can do this out of a run and wavebounce it and stuff and it's super duper fast) which is amazing and probably nearly broken. if you needle cancel right before hitting the ground, you either get soft landing lag or no landing lag. not sure which, probably soft. bouncing fish if used when sheik sort of touches the the stage with her lower half will end in the cartwheel animation which has much less lag than normal bouncing fish landing lag.

needles to bouncing fish is one of my favourite combos. diagonal needles can also be used to force airdodges from characters that need to go low to recover, like marcina. if sheik does this with perfect spacing, marcina can't recover unless they have a double jump.

nobody talks about it but her crouch is an okay way to avoid aerials and higher projectiles. it doesn't go quite low enough to avoid useful normals, sadly.

vanish can autocancel if it ends about 1 sheik height away from the ground. on a side note that's sort of related, i learned that soft landing lag (what you get when you don't do anything or autocancel) for most characters in smash 4 is 2 frames.

sheik also has an aerial interrupt with her double jump. this video can explain what that means.

forward throwing ganon is also fun to do since you can kill him at zero with fair chains to a gimp.

for those that are curious i think fair is -3 or -4 on shield, depending on if it's stale. i don't remember nair but it's safe. pretty sure sheik can do stuff like nair / fair into f tilt or jab to for shield pressure stuff. fair and weak nair are also confirms into bouncing fish, with nair working at kill percent. i bet sheik can also dair ike's up b to spike him and also get hit by his sword so she doesn't die. the sword part probably isn't needed since you can use dair while facing the stage and still spike people off stage (i did this to pkl's meta knight, it was awesome). this is just theorycrafting though.

up tilt also combos into pivot up tilt and grab and anything slower, so i guess f tilt confirm into up air would work (ban T&C against sheik, ban everything actually lol)

Actually didn't know most of these facts, very informative thanks.

Sheik

Pros:

-Throw combos. I feel like a lot of people overlook this as a strength because they're just getting faired, but throw combos and by extension the ability to threaten shield is what makes her neutral so potent. Most notably fthrow to BF which does 19% unstaled and combos for a very long time on most characters, dthrow to 50/50 uair/vanish, any throw to fair (which combos at low percents and is basically a kill throw at %160+).

Yeah part of why I mentioned her having good throw combos is just... I don't see many people talk about her throws outside of throw to fair, when she has tons of other variable options. Uair is one of my favorite moves of hers, and I forget does it auto-cancel on the ground?

Edited November 27, 2015 by Jedi

[Jedi]

Just a small bump wondering where Euk is lol, he wanted Sheik for awhile.

[euklyd]

I don't really have anything to say about Sheik besides what other people have said.

For me mostly she's really fun to play, and has a lot of goofy/flashy stuff both useful and not.

What this thread needs more of, tho, is VOID COMBOS:

(Meanwhile everyone else still have better kill options)

[Great Geargia Gateway]

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(Ignore this)

I. HATE! Needles.

So spammy, fast, invisible, campy, annoying, pitch damage, move interrupting, long range... I can't... I can't.
I mean not as worse as Duck Hunt as a whole, but freggin... Bruh... She has speed and combo power. Why does she still have this? If Ganondorf had something like this, maybe I'd understand, but does such a good potential character need something so cheap in anyone's hands.

[Elieson]

Charaxters like sheik are the reason I tend not to play fighting games. No relevant comments here

[Zera]

*Ranting about needles*

Gordo beats needles. Dedede confirmed top tier???

[Carmine Sword]

*Imagines a world in which Gordos are bounced back by Shiek's needles*

[Comet]

Charaxters like sheik are the reason I tend not to play fighting games. No relevant comments here

what do you mean by that?

[Elieson]

Combo heavy instakill or 0-death PCs in fighting games, while admittedly impressiv to watch once or twice, do not interest me as far as being both a viewer and participant of said game.

[General Horace]

if you're looking for combo heavy instakill i think ZSS is a worse offender there

not saying Sheik isn't the better character, but she definately doesn't have any (realistic) 0 to death comboes or w/e. Sure, she can do a lot of damage of combos, but even someone like samus who isn't anywhere near as good has some pretty nice ~40% combos at low %'s, its not just exclusive to Sheik.

[Elieson]

Samus has like two super duper strict kill comboa. ZSS I dropped after a while since I'm #horrible at pulling off any combo of hers that uses the B button but when you conpars them to Mac or D3 who simply don't have more than a strict combo, its just different. LIKE I said it's personal preference but it just presents a very one sided match to me of somebody just fishing for the same handful of kill combos and that to me is just kinda boring.

[General Horace]

Don't get me wrong, I dislike Sheik nearly as much as you do, but her kill combos aren't super easy like DK's or ZSS's, and she doesn't have a kill throw like Ness or Charizard. I wasn't referring to any kill combos with Samus, just stuff like utilt to charge shot that's an easy ~40% or so (providing you have a charge shot on deck), or dash attack to uair strings (which is probably more like 30%, but it's still reasonable). I'm pretty sure Samus can even get utilt to screw attack for a kill combo too, her utilt rules.

What kill combos do Sheik's fish for against you? The only common one is the 50/50 mixup of a throw afaik.

Edited November 29, 2015 by General Horace

[euklyd]

50/50 off of ftilts is bnb as well, just ftr

"50/50" idr if it actually is but w/e; it's definitely more of a mixup I guess

weak nair into fish at the edge as well, I guess

Edited November 30, 2015 by Euklyd

[Elieson]

nair/fair/ftilt chains that lead to offstage gimping and bouncing fish, usually.

I don't mind being boogerblasted by some grab-throw-Flipkick spike that ZSS does since her grab is kinda rough to play with

Edited November 30, 2015 by Elieson

[euklyd]

nair/fair/ftilt chains that lead to offstage gimping and bouncing fish, usually.

I don't mind being boogerblasted by some grab-throw-Flipkick spike that ZSS does since her grab is kinda rough to play with

grab throw flipkick isn't guaranteed at all afaik; it's upb you need to worry about

and sheik air wobbles aren't guaranteed into kills either

[Refa]

Usually what people are complaining about when they talk about ZSS is Dthrow -> Uair x3 -> Up B, which is too sick of a combo.

Edited November 30, 2015 by Refa