Having trouble with Sheiks movement

[Nishifue]

aaaaaaaaaa

 

[Raize]

Dash-dancing with Sheik for me feels fine. If you're used to characters with longer dash-dances like Marth, then you might have to dash-dance faster than you normally do.

 

[Nishifue]

aaaaaaaaaa

 

[-Spooky]

That might be it. I play Falcon and my movement is fluid, but say if I lose game 1 and I want to cp Sheik it feels so awkward. I can wave dash perfectly fine with Sheik, but the dash dance is so bad.

A lot of Sheiks use WD as a pseudo-substitute for dash-dancing, but it could only benefit you to get comfortable with Sheik's DD range and speed.

You may be familiar with Gravy and Gahtzu's method for practicing this by performing the longest DD you can without going into your run animation, and then slowly tightening into a very small, but still controlled one, and then slowly extending back out. Although this exercise was developed for Falcon, it really helped me get comfortable with her dashing. In conjunction with WDing, she does alright movement wise.

 

[Nishifue]

aaaaaaaaaa

 

[ECHOnce]

Going very fast with the DD helps, but there are still times when I do the dash turn around animation with Sheik.

The laggy dash turnaround can be interrupted by jump (and by extension wavedash). Just gotta figure out your movement substitutes, so you can mimic your Falcon spacing mindset.

DD edging right can be replaced with Dash left, Wavedash right. If your wavedashes are long enough (practice getting it close to horizontal, her wavedash will travel further than the initial dash. If you want to cover more distance in the pseudo DD, then you can instead DD right-->left, and then wavedash right.

EDIT: Biggest thing to consider when implementing a ton of WDing into your movement (as most Sheik's often do) is to remember that you're vulnerable and can't perform actions out of wavedash for...idk how many frames. I'm assuming it's just jumpsquat (3 frames), + airborne time (1-2 frames) + landing lag (4 frames) animations, but that's still a lot. So if you do two in a row, you've been left vulnerable for 16-20 frames. That's a poopton. Don't do two in a row if you're opponent is anywhere near you. Always mix a dash or a few in between lol.

 

[Nishifue]

aaaaaaaaaa

 

[mdmfromdaridge]

A lot of her movement will be based on wave dash. This is because sheiks DD is bad. Not only is it shorter than others, it is faster than the others as well.

If you watch videos of plup/m2k/shroomed/kirbykaze, you will see they aren't just spamming DD or WD, but instead using it to moderately adjust spacing, with flat out run, and sometimes walk used to bridge other situations.

 

[BRUJO~]

Cactuar Dashing - Run forward, crouch to cancel your run momentum, then dash backwards out of crouch.

All characters can do this. With Sheik it is incredibly important. The crouch+turnaround dash does take a couple frames more than a normal dd pivot, but it lets you abuse Sheik's great run speed at a longer distance than her puny dd range, and you still get an option to quicky change direction out of it.

I find it incredibly difficult to do a backwards dash out of crouch, so instead I run>crouch>walk forward>dash backwards. Done quickly you will spend very few frames turning around and entering dash again - less than a simple wavedash back.

With that said, wavedash is VERY important to Sheik as well, especially wavedash oos and wavedash back/down out of run/dash. These can be great noncommittal options for baiting your opponent, and should be used often.

 

[Nishifue]

aaaaaaaaaa

 

[ECHOnce]

I find it incredibly difficult to do a backwards dash out of crouch, so instead I run>crouch>walk forward>dash backwards. Done quickly you will spend very few frames turning around and entering dash again - less than a simple wavedash back.

This is more of a technical issue that you can grind out and fix, rather than a difficult problem that you have to find alternatives around. If a character is holding down in crouching state, and inputs a backwards dash on the next frame, they'll stay there. The game just won't let you do it. You're supposed to let the stick return to neutral, and then backwards dash. The reason why walking seems "easier" is because of the steps you take via muscle memory. Dashing is a full input; the stick is slammed all the way to the side. Walking is a partial input; the stick is tilted.

When you think "crouch --> dash," your muscle memory inputs "full down --> full side."
Easiest way to do this is to rotate the stick along the edge, which is what you don't want.

When you think "crouch --> walk," your muscle memory does not input "full down --> partial side."
It's easiest to return the stick to neutral, and then tilt: "full down --> neutral --> partial side."

But since "neutral" has become a prerequisite for "partial side," your thought process and muscle memory treats it as a single step ("full down --> neutral+partial side"), and that just happens to be the optimal input. Solution to your dash problem is to just grind out "full down --> neutral --> full side," while conditioning yourself to think of and feel the latter two steps as a 'single' input. Check out KK's Movement Drills! Stresses the importance of returning the stick to neutral to avoid situations like these, with movement drills to practice them out.

 

[Nishifue]

aaaaaaaaaa

 

[BRUJO~]

This is more of a technical issue that you can grind out and fix, rather than a difficult problem that you have to find alternatives around. If a character is holding down in crouching state, and inputs a backwards dash on the next frame, they'll stay there. The game just won't let you do it. You're supposed to let the stick return to neutral, and then backwards dash. The reason why walking seems "easier" is because of the steps you take via muscle memory. Dashing is a full input; the stick is slammed all the way to the side. Walking is a partial input; the stick is tilted.

When you think "crouch --> dash," your muscle memory inputs "full down --> full side."
Easiest way to do this is to rotate the stick along the edge, which is what you don't want.

When you think "crouch --> walk," your muscle memory does not input "full down --> partial side."
It's easiest to return the stick to neutral, and then tilt: "full down --> neutral --> partial side."

But since "neutral" has become a prerequisite for "partial side," your thought process and muscle memory treats it as a single step ("full down --> neutral+partial side"), and that just happens to be the optimal input. Solution to your dash problem is to just grind out "full down --> neutral --> full side," while conditioning yourself to think of and feel the latter two steps as a 'single' input. Check out KK's Movement Drills! Stresses the importance of returning the stick to neutral to avoid situations like these, with movement drills to practice them out.

Thank you, I will fix this