Whatever happened to Sheik being number one in the Tiers?

[APImagine]

Did they discover something new concerning Fox and Falco to make them jump to number one and two?

This isn't a joke topic, by the way, I'm actually still learning lots of new things.

 

[joejoe22802]

Well sheik probably has the least ways to play her. By that I mean many sheik players play sheik the same way. There isn't as much to change up as apposed to other characters. Another thing is sheik is one of the most simple characters so maybe at the start of the community it was easiest to "get good" with sheik. Overtime techniques for other characters caught up which brought sheik down.

Personally I believe once you get sheiks technique down you have to just be very quick and know your match ups.

 

[Mosarani]

Sheik beats people who don't di. She doesn't have the unpunishable approach of a space animal or the imbalanced range of marth. As everybody played sheik and tournament players improved their game, they learned how to deal with sheik as a character and she lost much of her edge.

At top levels of play she can still compete. I like to think of there being a rock-paper-scissors situation between fox, marth and sheik at the highest levels of competition. Fox > Sheik > Marth > Fox, however the advantages aren't the same between each and are stage dependent. Of those three, I believe that marth vs sheik is the most even, followed by fox vs marth with fox vs sheik being the least balanced. That plus sheik's affinity for losing to falco puts her in a slightly worse position than top tier. Personally I think marth belongs on the same tier as falco and fox, but so long as we agree that the space animals, sheik and marth are comparable it works out.

 

[Tsunami157]

It's good that you have a positive outlook on learning. For some ppl on this board you can't tell them anything.

To answer your question as to what happened to sheik. Fox and Falco happened to Sheik.

I myself am not a "grizzled vet" of smash so others will probably correct or add more.

As the game evolved so did people's perceptions of the characters. Sheik was the old "broken" character, but as people started implementing shine games (blasters helped as well)and noticed how effective it was thanks to sheiks physics. High traction, Decent weight. Sheik ceased being the "monster" that it once was. Fox has to but up-throw upair/shine spike/ bair FTW and Falco needs to focus on SHB pressure and shine combos. Long story short.....spacies generally wipe the floor with sheiks. Although really good sheiks have learned their fox/falco game and are more than a match for them. (ex. Drephen)

I'm sure others will add more, but that is the ground floor of the issue.

Edit: Oops I thought I was the first to post. Good posts Mosarani and joejoe
Take my post for what you will then.

 

[Shmooguy]

Fox > Sheik > Marth > Fox, however the advantages aren't the same between each and are stage dependent. Of those three, I believe that marth vs sheik is the most even, followed by fox vs marth with fox vs sheik being the least balanced.

Fox > Marth, but that matchup is the most even. Sheik ***** marth the most. Obviously kdj and drephen make it seem like the matchup is even, and it's true sheik has advantages on fox and marth has advantages on sheik that make it look even, but in general it really isn't.

Also it's harder to use Sheik than Fox or Falco. Any space animal with decent tech skill can perform okay, regardless of mindgames. Technical Falco's especially can do well even if they don't have a lot of experience.



Oh yeah, people learned to waveshine. That's what put sheik lower on the tier list.

 

[APImagine]

So what the heck are the space animals' weaknesses?

So many things I hear make it seem like Fox and Falco are virtually unstoppable. They must have a weakness, right?

 

[Nihonjin]

They ARE virtually unstoppable.

 

[Mosarani]

So what the heck are the space animals' weaknesses?

So many things I hear make it seem like Fox and Falco are virtually unstoppable. They must have a weakness, right?

Unless you're into dittos, the most common counter pick for space animals is marth. There's a ****load of subtlety to chainthrowing on both ends, from really tiny di changes to being just in or out of range of an uptilt or forward smash tipper, but from what we've seen of the moments when ken or mew2king's marth gets it down, a marth grab on a space animal on fd can be a 1 combo kill.

Of course low tiers like luigi and dk can counter space animals pretty hard because of how fast fox and falco fall, but those characters are terrible for taking on marth and sheik.

But yes, that's why fox and falco are at the top. People usually make out the advantages between the high tiers to be something more than they are. You can beat space animals with sheik without needing to massively outplay your opponent.

 

[Shack]

sheik cant shffl like the other characters (neither can samus). I think that is the main reason, so its not as easy to get too many 0-death combos unless they come from tilts/chain grab to fair. So she relies more on the user's reaction time and speed, you cant really go into a match saying "im going to try and combo this guy with ____ and ___." You really have to be a better player to win the match (unless your fighting at lower level play where you can just tilt and grab all day)

Space animals r prolly some of the easier matchups if you know how they move since they are easy to combo and have predictable recoveries that leave them open. Tech chase grabs/dtilts ***** them. You can pretty much tilit/grab them to death once they get passed like 40%. Or you can camp on edge with needles and throw them backwards when they get close followed by a bair, fair, nair or just edgegaurd. If fox tries to shine you, use a fair and i usually ledge spikes him or makes him think twice b4 trying to shine spike you again.

Salco's lasers into drill comgos and fox's shine are what prolly make them the top characters right now. The list is always changing and doesnt really matter b/c some ppl actually do really good in a match up that should be really hard for them. You just have to find what works agaisnt who.

By the way, I am NOT talking about fighting against the TOP players, im talking about regular gameplay agaisnt friends and in tournies.

 

[Takumaru]

Didn't they also remove 1 or two tiers to only 4 or 5 tiers now?

 

[CmRoddy]

They ARE virtually unstoppable.

Amen to that.

 

[REDRAGON]

Fox > Marth, but that matchup is the most even. Sheik ***** marth the most. Obviously kdj and drephen make it seem like the matchup is even, and it's true sheik has advantages on fox and marth has advantages on sheik that make it look even, but in general it really isn't.

Also it's harder to use Sheik than Fox or Falco. Any space animal with decent tech skill can perform okay, regardless of mindgames. Technical Falco's especially can do well even if they don't have a lot of experience.



Oh yeah, people learned to waveshine. That's what put sheik lower on the tier list.

So stupid....
Sheiks combos are to frkin easy, and her tech skill is by far the easiest.
The only reason she does not do great, is because everyone knows how to use her and play her.

i hate when noobs like you say crap like this...

 

[Rohins]

Redragon you quoted him, called him stupid, then agreed with him. Maybe not purposely, but I think you are reading his post wrong. He isn't saying Sheik's tech skill is harder than Fox and Falco, he's saying that once you have techskill down with Fox and Falco it's much easier to win with them rather than Sheik.

You even said it yourself, people know how to fight Sheik better than fighting a good technical Fox or Falco. So I'm just confused why you are disagreeing with him. His comment wasn't who was the easiest character to learn simple combos with, it was about who is easier to win with against good people.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

ignore redragon, he just likes to flame to boost his ego.

and for the most part at the upper levels of play fox n falco have a much easier time. fox has his shine that combos everyone to hell, and a usmash that kills below 100%. falco has his shine that does pretty well vs most chars (though the higher the % the worse it becomes) but mostly his lasers, dair, overpowered smashes, and super strong nair/bair.

not to mention that sheik's former "OMG FAIR KILLS AT 50%" stuff is completely removed by the amount of DI players have learned recently. you can see people living well into the 100% range before dying to the fair. her bair is stronger but needs to be sweetspotted. her only decent ground killing move is the dsmash, which is a really good smash i will admit. decent range, good for edgegaurding (hits under ledge at the start, good to stop sideb sweetspotters ^^), and does decent damage. no peach dsmash, but ya take what ya can get. i think the thing that really stops her from being the "monster character" is her low traction and really short dash. its hard to mindgame someone with the dashdance when it only goes 2 inches.

also, sheik is mostly the best all around character. you can kill off the top decently, the sides decently, a good projectile (somewhat situational, not as good as a falco laser, but better than a luigi fireball), great sex kick, awesome tilts, and probably the best dash attack in the game. basically this well-rounded-ness is what made her the top to begin with. so well rounded that for a while she was seen as nearly perfect. i think kish cubed once made a topic about some things sheik would need to be incredibly broken (check kish prime's/squared's sig, they used to have a link in there).

basically, sheik is the reason most of the characters are in lower tiers. she can chain throw the majority of the characters in the game.

 

[APImagine]

How well do Sheiks generally do now in tournaments, anyways?

 

[Ophelius]

Not as good as they used to. Friggin Marios, Marths, Spacies, and Icies are Taking Sheik's place now.

 

[APImagine]

Well, the space animals makes sense, for sure.

I want to try to get used to them, actually, but I find I'm too slow with the attack on a short hop when it comes to Fox.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

shieks do decent, but they dont win tourneys. they do better than marios tho btw >_> i dont know how it is in texas, but where im from marios suck and dont do good in tourneys.

 

[Shmooguy]

oops, ignore this.

 

[Domo]

Fox > Marth, but that matchup is the most even. Sheik ***** marth the most. Obviously kdj and drephen make it seem like the matchup is even, and it's true sheik has advantages on fox and marth has advantages on sheik that make it look even, but in general it really isn't.

Also it's harder to use Sheik than Fox or Falco. Any space animal with decent tech skill can perform okay, regardless of mindgames. Technical Falco's especially can do well even if they don't have a lot of experience.



Oh yeah, people learned to waveshine. That's what put sheik lower on the tier list.

First off, Shiek doesn't outright **** Marth. There is an advantage but a well played Marth still has a decent chance of beating Shiek. On top of that, Shiek's one of the easiest characters to learn while a good Fox/Falco takes a hell of a lot of practice (waveshining - not an easy feat to pick up).

Also, the reason for the tier change that I've come to understand, not to mention experience, is that Fox and even Falco can really drop the hammer on Shiek if done right. As well as being the only characters who have a large advantage over Shiek, they also have advantages over all the other high tier characters. The only character I hear to have an advantage on Fox is... Donkey Kong. Yeah, Donkey Kong, and only at the professional level.

 

[Lexaeus]

First off, Shiek doesn't outright **** Marth. There is an advantage but a well played Marth still has a decent chance of beating Shiek. On top of that, Shiek's one of the easiest characters to learn while a good Fox/Falco takes a hell of a lot of practice (waveshining - not an easy feat to pick up).

Also, the reason for the tier change that I've come to understand, not to mention experience, is that Fox and even Falco can really drop the hammer on Shiek if done right. As well as being the only characters who have a large advantage over Shiek, they also have advantages over all the other high tier characters. The only character I hear to have an advantage on Fox is... Donkey Kong. Yeah, Donkey Kong, and only at the professional level.

Sheik is Marth's worst matchup. No it isn't outright ****, but it's pretty bad considering all top tier matchups.

If a fox/falco can't waveshine, they aren't good with their character.

DK doesn't have an advantage on fox. The closest it gets is Bum. Bum makes the matchup pretty even. Nobody else does.

 

[Winston]

I think if you watch some videos of Fox vs Sheik matches you'll get the picture. Fox is faster, his nair is a better approach, upsmash kills early, SHEIK CAN'T COMBO FOX at low percentages, and most of all....

UPTHROW. UPAIR. Is too good on sheik.

Drephen's sheik is pretty famous for beating falcos though. He's placed around 5th in this year's major tourneys going all sheik. It's fox that's the really bad matchup. Even if they don't waveshine you across FD, upthrow upair, and nairs are just too good.

KDJ won an MLG earlier this year using mostly sheik in the finals, though. KDJ's sheik is amazing, but he hasn't been in major tourneys lately.

LASTLY, keep in mind that the tier list you're looking at is *somewhat* old. Mew2King's marth playing has somewhat changed the metagame *again*; people are moving away from falco now. It's pretty much agreed that Fox and Marth are 1 and 2 (the order is debatable).

 

[mog87]

dk has quite the advatange on fox well atleast on FD.

 

[Winston]

dk has quite the advatange on fox well atleast on FD.

-__- Are you basing that of captain jack videos where he destroys those foxes?

If a fox is intent on laser camping, he can beat DK on FD. It's the foxes that let themselves get grabbed often that lose.

M2K beat BUM's DK on FD using fox.

 

[Shmooguy]

w/e sheik sucks just use space animals they always win and they have no counters.

 

[monty06]

im ok because im on pal and sheik is still highest on our tier list lol

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

fox is better for 2 reasons. his shine and hes a fast faller. his shine being the fastest move in the game and having the most priority in the game and also it sets up for a ton of combos, not to mention the nearly unescapable waveshine to usmash kill. him being a fast faller helps him do all of his combos with more efficiency.

that said, there is a lot sheik can still do to keep up with fox and beat fox. as stated above, there are 2 main things that fox's do to combo sheiks. that is uthrow --> uair and shine --> usmash. for the uthrow --> uair you have to DI the throw one way and DI the uair the other. if u want to be really cool you can SDI the initial hit from the uair to avoid the 2nd one (where most of the damage and all the knockback is from). for the shine --> usmash, there are a few things you should do. 1) avoid situations where u would get shined. this is mostly being put on the defensive (shield pressure mostly, as getting shined from trying to shieldgrab is pretty common), but also look out for some nair/dair approaches (nair at low % wont send you far, and will keep u in shine range. dair has set knockback) which will lead into shine. if u mess up and get shined, ADI away. i know you will be far enough with marth, though you might have to SDI with sheik for it to get you out of range.

now what advantages does sheik have on fox? well she cant chain throw, but her edge guard on fox is super. needles really **** up space animals who try to come from below (them sitting in their firefox just screams "NEEDLE ME PLEASE!!!!!") not to mention dsmash owning any sweet spotting options. if u feel like really showing off you can jump out and fair them out of their recovery, or just edgehog to bair. all of these **** foxes.

combo wise, sheik doesnt do that bad. uthrow to dmash and techchase both work well. utilt does really good too. string together some dash attacks to humiliate them.

overall if you can counter fox's advantage sheik does pretty well in the match up.

 

[4 Aces]

Which characters CAN'T be chaingrabbed? I've been wondering that for a while now. Can I see the current tier list? I haven't seen it yet. Does the tier list vary from region to region?

I'm not sure if this works very well, but Sheik can go into a dash attack and then do a fair at a certain percentage. It's annoying when my sister does this to me (Fox). Yeah, I'm probably missing something; I don't have much experience when it comes down to vs.-players or DI.

 

[technomancer]

Depends on the matchup but many floaty characters can't be chaingrabbed if they DI well. Sheik is lower now because someone figured out that Fox was mad broken.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

honestly, i think falco is way overrated. tier list should be fox marth sheik then falco peach.

anyways, http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=81928 is for the tier list.

characters that can be chain thrown:
sheik
doc
mario (i believe)
ganon
link
dk
and everyone below there, except for kirby. maybe not zelda either, im not sure. as i said before, most of those characters are low tier because of sheik.

 

[Domo]

On top of that, Shiek's one of the easiest characters to learn while a good Fox/Falco takes a hell of a lot of practice (waveshining - not an easy feat to pick up).

If a fox/falco can't waveshine, they aren't good with their character..

I understand, and it doesn't really matter because tiers are supposed to consider theoretical "perfect" players. However, the poster I was responding to tried to justify the tier difference because "fox is easier to play than shiek", an assertion we all find laughable in a very grave way.

 

[Domo]

honestly, i think falco is way overrated. tier list should be fox marth sheik then falco peach.

I agree with him, just because Falco is better against Shiek doesn't make him a better character against everyone else, Shiek puts more characters into their places than any other character in the game. A Shiek up against random characters will win more often than Falco I believe.

 

[Tope]

You can't chain Mario, Doc, or DK.

 

[Ophelius]

Which is why I have so much trouble with Jimbo.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I understand, and it doesn't really matter because tiers are supposed to consider theoretical "perfect" players. However, the poster I was responding to tried to justify the tier difference because "fox is easier to play than shiek", an assertion we all find laughable in a very grave way.

fox is easier to play than sheik. his combos are so much more powerful and deadly and much harder to escape. and btw our current metagame is getting pretty close to "theoretically perfect players". watch some KDJ, M2K, and PCChris vids and see some of their tech. in our current metagame, sheiks get ***** by DI.

You can't chain Mario, Doc, or DK.

i retract mario and doc, but i know DK can be chained, and i have done it. im pretty sure i saw some sheik combo vid recently where the person had a huge section on chainthrowing for some reason and they chainthrowed a ton of chars including DK.

 

[mood4food77]

dk can't be CGed for whatever reason

i hear DK is a sheik counterpick but i don't see it as sheik's comboes are just...ghey

 

[terr13]

Fox and Falco are higher now since more people have the tech skill to use them decently. Also, they're just fricking fast, and have guaranteed combos on every character, plus some easily chainable attacks if the opponent DIs incorrectly.

 

[APImagine]

On the other hand, how well does Marth do against the top tier characters (Fox, Falco, Sheik and Peach), and how well does he do against every other lower tier character? Does he school them as much as Sheik does?

 

[Speedsk8er]

Not as good as they used to. Friggin Marios, Marths, Spacies, and Icies are Taking Sheik's place now.

WOOT WOOOOOT! ^_^

Aside from Chu and occasionally Wobbles, I don't ever hear about IC players doing well in tournaments. Especially since we can be countered by **** near EVERYONE. >_<

 

[Ophelius]

Nice sig btw. Dunno why I said icies. Lol. Sheik doesn't do as well as some other characters against them though.