Source
r/SSBM•
Empathized

Is maining sheik at a low level "bad"?

I picked up competitive melee about 4 or 5 months ago, picked Sheik as my main, and, despite having practiced a lot of techskill with her, am starting to find myself dropping lower and lower in my local (low-level) tournament placings. Is this because sheik is too "easy"? I guess my real question is whether or not I wasted my time learning sheik instead of some other character.
I've read several places that sheik is "easy" and I've certainly hear a lot of shittalk from my friends that I play an "easy" character. Have I wasted my five months of training?

Posted Nov 2, 2014, 3:52 AM UTC

227
bubjunir•

Sheik is only "easy" in the sense that you don't have to press a lot of buttons. No character is going to make placing well at tournaments easy. This game is hard.

13
barwin•

if you keep using sheik im gonna arrest u and/or beat you up

12
_Jaiden•

  1. Do you like the character?

  2. Are you having FUN with Sheik?

  3. Play the top 8 character you like the best/have the most fun with if your end goal is winning games.

10
[deleted]•

Honestly, at "low levels" like at locals, pretty much every character is viable.

13
Xentaku•

Unless you're in a retarded stacked region like SoCal.

18
WeetThins•

Lol seriously. As a newer player who's local tourney is SSS, I've given up hope at making it out of pools. I'm just playing the game now to see how good I can get and have tons of fun playing it.

7
skwaag5233•

Hey man, that's what the games for! Have fun, get better, and one day you'll make it out of pools :)

3
IAmA_talking_cat_AMA•

I wouldn't say every character, but anyone down to DK should do fine at low levels for sure.

Not every local will be low level like that though, it depends on your region.

3
alexalex12•

Have you been out of region yet? I think you might be surprised at your results.

2
IAmA_talking_cat_AMA•

There aren't even any tournaments in my region lol.

2
EmpathizedOP•
  1. Yeah!
  2. Totally!
  3. This makes sense, but I'm just worried that as people get more technical I won't be able to keep up; it just seems like good spacie/marth techskill can just "flowchart" kill sheik
2
Gatoraay•

I'm just worried that as people get more technical I won't be able to keep up

That didn't stop aMSa from entering the worldwide scene with only 2 years experience AND playing Yoshi, a character that most considered to be low tier. Just practice practice practice! (seriously, practice)

8
mdz1•

Sheik's ceiling is at least m2k. You don't have to worry about limitations of the character until you get as good as him, and in becoming as good as m2k, you'll have such a deep understanding of the game that picking a new character should you determine Sheik is actually limited in the post-m2k meta wouldn't be that difficult.

5
_Jaiden•

if you're getting killed as if you're a flowchart you need to mixup quite a bit more, grind vs marth/spacie & study the matchup more.

4
GCSChris240•

Sheik is a top 4 character, so that shouldn't really be a concern. I think everyone that mains sheik goes through the time when their other friends get better at characters like fox/marth/falco/etc., and you have to catch up, because a lot of the stuff low level sheiks do is extremely punishable, but very easy to win with when starting out. My friend went though the same thing. Just play who you want and you will get better, as long as you want to get better. Focus on your own play. Good luck!

3
Laudandus•

Sheik is one of the best characters when no one can do techskill because you lack less of her tools compared to Fox/Falco/Marth, but she suffers from low game knowledge (CC %'s) more than those characters do so she generally suffers against many characters once people learn to do techskill and learn to crouch cancel. She picks up again once you start to understand how to play around crouching opponents. Don't worry about it.

7
CodeNameJake•

Agreed. Also, when you're not focusing on tech skill, you focus more on reading your opponent, which is very important, and is a problem with most people starting out as fox, falco, ect.

5
jwcsal•

As someone who has main falco from the start this is very true.

2
Literati•

how to play around crouching opponents

Sorry for the out-of-the-blue reply here, but could you please elaborate on this, at least a little? My go-to for people who love to CC (read: anyone good) is to needle camp and grab a lot for the first ~60%, but I worry that makes me too predictable. Is there more I'm missing here?

1
Laudandus•

Needle -> grab, spaced/retreating aerials, and noticing that if they're preemptively CC'ing they can't move and are a sitting duck to grab.

Also, be sure you know what percents CC is actually an issue for fair/bair at (note : I don't but I have a feeling for it, lol). If you don't know how to deal with an option, I find that simply never doing anything that loses to it ultimately usually causes you to find an answer.

1
Dislikes_Chocolate•

I think every Shiek main goes through an identity crisis at one point in their smash career. I've started to develop a Marth secondary so I can have more fun in friendlies, but will probably stick to Shiek for the majority of match-ups.

5
MyDadCantCount•

As a Shiek main I've gone through like 4 separate identity crises. Hence my Peach flair. Or my previous Marth flair. Or my previous Samus flair. Or my previous ICs flair.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

3
stickity•

Playing sheik at a low level is not bad. Hitting the point where you know her easy punishes and not expanding upon that is bad. Standing and ftilting instead of learning to use movement to bait is bad. If you let the character do the work for you, it's bad.

2
_angman•

if anything it's the opposite

1
Newance•

If you've only been playing for 4-5 months it's definitely not character choice holding you back. It's only at higher levels/more experienced play that character choice matters. Just my $0.02 though.

1
NMWShrieK•

Maining Sheik at a low level is good.

1