British Columbia's best Sheik here (lots of Falcos in BC, Blunted_Object10 is my main MU experience).
The first piece of advice I asked for when I moved to Vancouver and the first piece of advice I got was the following:
"How do I deal with laser approaches from Falco?" "Powershield them." "..." "Yeah, you have to be that good now."
The following advice is direct from Mew2King on facebook:
Jason Zimmerman
grabs low %
after 21% dash attack after 24/25% f tilt (24 vs fox 25 vs falco)
then tech chases
or wavedash back a lot
back thrw at edge
up or down throw middle stage
a lot of wavedash back and grabs
space fox
powershield falcos lasers then wavedash oos, nair oos, or roll oos
Basically, Sheik "unlocks" moves. At low %, you want to fish for grabs and nair oos a lot. Then ftilts and shit, then dash attacks and shit (but always grabs).
On March 29 2014 10:07 Zoler wrote: Every character unlocks moves at certain percentages.
Yes, but you're still nair-shining with Fox and laser/drill approaching with Falco no matter what percentage somebody is at for example. Their spacing zones stay the same. Sheik's spacing zone and preferred moves change.
On March 29 2014 10:07 Zoler wrote: Every character unlocks moves at certain percentages.
Yes, but you're still nair-shining with Fox and laser/drill approaching with Falco no matter what percentage somebody is at for example. Their spacing zones stay the same. Sheik's spacing zone and preferred moves change.
It's risky to nair as Fox at low percents vs good players.
You will cc grabbed or something else into a death combo. Fox vs those characters at low percents use grabs, usmash, bair and laser. Sometimes dair of course but that's risky since the range is so poor. You don't even need to CC fox nair to actually punish it at low percents, it's enough to DI down when being hit, so you can run and DI down if it hits you.
Falco is different since his dair is lol. Also it's just foxs dair that's called the drill, just letting you know!
Still I get what you're saying, Sheik has a harder time vs CC than most other characters since she only really have grab, dsmash and needles as an answer. However this isn't that hard to get around as you get better and better as sheik since one grab is really all you need to kill some characters!
This may sound obvious, but I think half the match is rooted in stage depending on a character/players ability to navigate around falco lasers.
If you're good at needle camping, BF is a safe choice. Learning to tech dair/shine combos is imparative to winning too, if you can't properly DI out, platforms will save you that trouble usually.
Don't underestimate standard ground needles either, falco can be interrupted if sheik starts it before he starts to jump around and shoot his pew pew lasers. You won't win trades after the initial laser, but most falcos only shoot lasers at distances they feel is safe for them to do so. Against falcos that tend to back up before shooting lasers a few sets of needles as they are trying to put distance will help you tremendously.
If the falco hits your shield high with his dair, you can shield grab them. Don't do this though if they're hitting the shield low because you're gonna give them a free shine. Some players actually tilt their shield up to force the falco to hit higher on their shield so they can do this, but it only works at certain heights.
If the falco CC's a lot, don't hesitate to dsmash, or just throw out grabs a lot. Well spaced fairs and bairs can actually be key too.
Played a ~30 min session with my office money match rival, all Sheik vs Falco (Ben Swartz, the one doing most of the talkign in the vid - on that note, sorry about some of the background noise and i realize that the stream quality is pretty low for the office of a video game streaming company but bear with me)
I would absolutely LOVE some critique/tips from anyone who watches any part of this. I'm really trying to get better, not just at this matchup, but at the game in general.
At around 2:09:44 is my loser's finals match vs BenSW, the falco I'm always money matching. I know its bad form to post any match you win when asking for criticism but since this was a Bo5 that went to last game last stock I think it could have easily gone either way and I made a fuckton of mistakes that I would love some help on.
The WF/Finals is just me getting owned by Scar (with the handicap of having 3 stocks and random character) because he really outclasses me in every way.
I guess theres a million things that could be said but probably just cover the basics and the things that will by far make the biggest difference for your game
Firstly, a few technical things - in order to play the basic sheik game you're going to want to be able to WD oos, dashdance, pivot dance (or fox trotting whatever you wanna call it) wavelanding on platforms (even the wavestop is fine straight down)
Right now you're stuck with a lot of rolling around which is OK because your opponent isn't fast/adapting enough to punish it. The higher up you go, the more creative your movement needs to become in order to space against your opponents attacks and intrude on his space to get your own attacks in Even though im pretty sure you can already execute all these in practise/single player, it's about using them correctly in real games to out-space and bait your opponent
Alot of sheiks like to start off with run forward+WD back as their basic space/bait tool because sheik's WD is really fast so spamming WD to move pretty much everywhere in close quarters can be really advantageous especially against newer players
Right now you are not in need of any complicated baits (your falco opponent is basically laser-laser->throw an attack in your general direction) so as long as you are careful about keeping your space you can pretty much force him to whiff everything he throws and punish him.
Next about your punish game and your attacks in general. You are using all the basic sheik attack moves (good) (dash attack, tilt, slap!) and you got the basic idea that when you're in "punish mode" you can throw attacks like downsmashes to hit techs on spots and stuff which is great
The main thing i would say is that you are throwing a lot of attacks based on where your opponent currently is, and not considering instead where he is GOING to be. This both applies in neutral (when often you're getting ready to attack but instead he flies into your face) and in punish game (where often you have him on the ground/thrown/stunned, and you immediately attack in the general direction when he is in a bad/knocked down position) If you tilt him and he gets knocked down into the ground, you can just wait and see what he does and punish him accordingly. If you got fast reactions, you can follow his techs and follow up with all kinds of moves, but even for players with slower reactions (m2k anyone?) you can simply wait for your opponent to do "something" and put him in an awful position (for example, a lot of players like to do the desperation spot dodge when they see their opponent coming from a tech-chase)
When you're in punish mode, try to put yourself in a position using the movement techniques where you are able to cover his options and don't be afraid to take a step back and think about what he can/can't do before going in for your attack. There is no need to immediately throw a dash attack/downsmash right when you throw him/knock him down, you can follow his tech and position yourself in a way that covers his options to put him in an EVEN WORSE position than before.
in addition to that, I'll add 2 more things that kind of don't have to do with using attacks.
1 is just general movement. It's a little funny watching you vs falco in loser's becausee whenever you guys are separated you two just immediately charge at each other. It feels like whenever you guys get a bit of distance from each other into neutral you guys have to immediately run at each other and each of you chooses a move (like dash attack vs roll) and then you see who chose better. I understand you want to get in on falco before he starts the laser train (laser dd better than mass laser honestly, but that's another story) but running straight at him or dash attack across half the stage is not great. I'd just watch a melee video and only pay attention to how a sheik is moving, don't worry about attacks or tech skill or anything like that, just study how they move at certain parts of the stage.
2 is there are a lot of questionable decisions you make that I can't help but feel you're doing because you feel like you have to do something. You're on auto pilot so you just throw out a move and see what happens rather than making a conscious decision to use a move because it's good in that situation. Mango often dash dances in front of his opponent's shield and doesn't throw out a single move for a couple seconds. People often just dash dance at each other trying to bait something out without throw a single move (more often in match ups like marth ditto or falcon ditto). Try not to throw out moves just because you feel like you have to do something; eliminating that habit will get you really far because then you can look back on a tape and say "ok, I used that move cause I thought X but clearly I was wrong" rather than "I used that move cause I wanted to press buttons and clearly I was wrong".
Thanks guys, I really truly appreciate the advice.
The idea that I dont always have to do be doing something just do it and can instead be more patient and react to them - and the idea that I should start thinking about attacking where they are GOING to be and not where they are right now have already given me an immediate win rate boost and I'm going to keep working to polish both of those skills as well as apply the rest of the advice you guys gave.
Today is money match monday - I've got $20 bets with a falco, falco, and marth respectively so here's hoping I can put some of what you guys say to good use! I'll try and get another video sometime from this week or next just to see if I've made any progress.
EPT
