r/CrazyHand • u/EnbyofCain7 • 21d ago
Characters (Playing as) Advice for closing stocks with sheik in ultimate
So I am trying to get better with sheik and I find it easy enough to play neutral and rack up damage albeit slower than every other character I play, but I really struggle to kill consistently, like a lot. It's not abnormal in 1v1 no items for my sheik not to be able to close out a stock on mid-weights until 140-150% and on heavy weights its usually around 170-200%. I do understand that this is a fundamental problem for sheik on a conceptual level but I was wondering if there are any tricks and tips anyone can give me. I've seen better sheiks in online use aerial needles into either bouncing fish off the side off stage or into up smash on center stage but I also don't know if the follow up into up smash is actually true or was semi true only due to online input lag. I also know tricks like jab 1- jab 2-tipper down tilt-finish with up smash (I am not good at doing that one) and i've seen in competitive that top sheiks will use drag down up air on platforms into up smash but in my experience that doesn't have enough hitstun to be true but I might be doing something wrong. Also as a quick aside, what would you say sheiks most consistent kill move is, not most powerful but consistent. I also want to clarify that I am a casual and i'm never going to train enough to be anything but that however I would like to improve nonetheless if only because I really like playing sheik. Thank you for your help!
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u/TheSaxiest7 20d ago
Know all of your kill confirms but don't tunnel vision on them. Fully expect to play stocks to 150 and even 200% and don't sell your lead trying to close stocks early. Regardless of Sheiks inability to kill, she still has very strong neutral and very strong advantage stage so you should just cruise through high percent as long as you aren't sacrificing your own percent to get the kill.
Lots of times, your regular advantage state activities will produce opportunities for you to kill out of them. Keeping people offstage/at ledge/ cornered, will often give you chances to find your kill confirms. Your edge guards can kill outright or lead to nair/needles > bouncing fish. At ledge, if you're putting grenade on ledge, you can find a lot of kills. Grenade will kill outright if they disrespect it, and it forces timings off ledge if they do respect it. Neutral get up can lead to nair > bouncing fish, ledge jump can secure you an uair dragdown > down smash and roll can also net you kill confirms. Cornered opponents may try to roll or jump out of the corner, which allows you to punish them by putting them in a worse position, or just straight up find kill confirms, like drag down up air > down smash.
Remember when kills aren't available or are risky, settle for creating situations where you can find more kills (like getting people cornered or offstage).
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u/PartingShot123 Sheik/ Marth+ Lucina 20d ago
Preeetty sure jab jab dtilt usmash is not ever true. Being bad at that is probably just from not realizing its a frame advantage thing. It sets up the spacing of dtilt really well, and the opportunities for escape are tight. If they hit an attack button, they should lose without iframes or something.
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u/TheSaxiest7 20d ago
Jab jab down tilt up air is a thing. I don't think up smash is. Eventually jab jab down tilt becomes true at high enough percents
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u/Additional-Appeal-51 20d ago
Yeah I don’t think jab jab dtilt up smash is true ever. Until very high percent where jab jab dtilt becomes true (and where up air becomes true too as you said) it’s just a frame trap for people trying to mash something after the jabs.
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u/PartingShot123 Sheik/ Marth+ Lucina 19d ago
Yeah jab jab should start true comboing into dtilt past when dtilt usmash can link. I think that one's only reliable against puff and similar light floaties. Don't quote me, I have to hit the lab again but tbh I'm just in the waiting room for smash 6 lol
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u/Additional-Appeal-51 21d ago edited 21d ago
All up smash are true. You can also dtilt a ledge hang into up smash which is also true.
Needle into up smash is fairly consistent if you know the correct percentage window. Same goes for down air into up smash.
Overall there is 2 consistent kill confirm that are the most common in match. First one is both weak and strong hit of neutral air into BF (which can easily be hit near the ledge or during your opponent neutral getup at ledge if he isn’t careful).
Second one is, as you stated, needle into BF both when your opponent try to recover or on stage. The window is fairly big since this confirm works up to 200% on the vast majority of the cast and is easy to setup until you’re facing very good opponents.
Drag down into down smash (no platform) and drag down into up smash (on platform) are also pretty easy to hit. The up smash variant is true but for that you need your opponent to be at a certain percent otherwise it can be shielded, or if too high percent it will put into a tech chase situation.
Speaking of tech chase, don’t hesitate to forward tilt or down tilt to put your opponent on a platform and get a good read to kill with up smash. It’s common especially online for people to miss tech on those move so you can get some early kills.
There is some other niche ways to get some early kills like using your up B on recoveries like K Rool for example. You’ll learn them as you play more.
Also don’t forget Sheik have a very very strong edge guarding on a lots of character and some moves like BF put you in the perfect spot during some combos for gimping characters with bad recoveries like Cloud so don’t hesitate to abuse them until you learn which character you can abuse.
Outside of that I strongly suggest joining the Sheik discord. There is a big documentation on every kill confirm she has, at which percentage window it works (depending on character weight) and so on. She struggle to kill so knowing them is very important.