By far one of Sheik’s weakest option in Super Smash Bros Melee is how she approaches opponents. Learning to mix up and cover these weaknesses will make her devastating punish game and edgeguards a lot more prevalent throughout matches. Her main moves to approach is a variation of dash attack, a dash grab, or a walk-up attack against the opponent. Throughout this article, I will be telling you how to cover this weakness, how to implement it, and when to use it so that you can become a great Sheik player in Super Smash Bros. Melee.

Sheik’s dash attack, when connected with opponents, will lead into up aerials, forward aerials, back aerials, or pushes the opponent off the stage giving Sheik stage control and the advantage. Sheik would want to use this move at mid percentages because, like any other Dash Attack, it is weak at low percentages and only decent at high percentages. Dash Attack is also very weak to crouch canceling, shielding, and spot dodging.

At low percentages, dash attack is susceptible to crouch canceling, gets beat by shielding, and is weak against spot dodge. These defensive options give the opponent an opportunity to punish Sheik which will result in a lot of damage, loss of advantage, and/or a stock loss. When getting crouch cancelled, Sheik is open to every form of attacks like special moves such as Shine or Lasers, smash attacks, and combo confirms. If the Sheik would still like to use dash attack at low percentage, they must then wait or bait out the opponent’s movement by incorporating movement options of their own such as wave dash back, dash dances, empty short hops, and/or throwing out a move that would make the opponent come out of their defenses. Experienced players will be ready with one of these three tactics and will be ready to punish Sheik for dash attacking at low percentages so be careful.

Once Sheik connects a dash attack without getting crouch cancelled, shielded, or spot dodged, she can then follow up with a forward tilt, up tilt, or a down smash. A problem arises which depends a lot on the opponent and how they react to what percent they are at. Opponents may have the awareness to then crouch cancel these follow-up attacks, allowing the opponent to then punish Sheik for attacking. Sheik is also able to grab after using dash attack which will lead to down throw follow-ups, but it leads into the question of why didn't Sheik just grab in the first place without all of the risks?

Sheik is able to use dash attack at high percent and gets the advantage because it gives stage control, but it often does not lead to kill confirms. This coupled with the large opening that dash attacking brings when it misses is not the most optimal decision. Dash Attacking at high percent alleviates the worry of crouch canceling because it no longer not works, however, opponents will instinctively use shield, spot dodge, or dash out of the way more often which will put Sheik into a disadvantageous state. This gives the opponent combo opportunities, and/or will result in a stock loss for Sheik.

Dash attack at high percentage launches the opponent upwards too high for Sheik to cleanly connect an aerial, however, this still opens up opportunities for Sheik to punish them. While the opponent is in the air, Sheiks can bait the opponent to use their jump, make them use an attack prematurely, or pressure them to not do anything and make them get hit. All of these options may eventually lead to a kill from one of her aerials like forward air, back air, up air, or neutral air in some cases. Against experienced players they will use uncommon strategies to combat their disadvantageous position like Shines to stall, jump to the ledge, or come down with a high priority move which may cause Sheik to lose a stock. Dash attacking at a high percentage is still a good option, however, it contains a lot of variances which spans from the opponent losing a stock, to Sheik losing a stock.

At mid percentage, Sheik’s dash attack is very deadly because it leads into forward air, back air, up air, and neutral air which can kill or put the opponent at an even worse positioning than before. This will then give Sheik more edgeguarding opportunities, which is her most powerful option as a character, or eliminates the opponent off the side of the stage. Even at this percentage dash attacking is still weak against spot dodging and shielding, however, there is no more crouch canceling because it will pop the opponent upwards to where Sheik’s aerials land.

In addition to kill confirms, this also opens the options to tilts, smashes like down and up smash, a grab, or a knockdown which leads into a tech chase. All of these options are open to Sheik because of dash attack at mid percentage, so in retaliation, opponents will be shielding, spot dodging, or baiting out the dash attack and then punishing her failed approach if they successfully avoid it.

Sheik’s dash grab is a medium-risk/high-reward option for her as an approach option because it is good at low, medium, and high percentage against the opponent. Sheik would want to use this move more often because it leads into tech chases, kill confirms, chain grabs on certain characters, and guaranteed combos which will lead to high damage output and oftentimes edgeguards. The weakness about dash grabbing is that it is poor against spot dodging and against opponents who bait it out by dash dancing. Once the grab or dash grab is missed, it will leave Sheik open to smash attacks, combos, and kill confirms from the opponent.

At low percent a grab and a down throw on an opponent will often lead into a true combo, giving Sheik the advantage. This can stem from chain grabs on characters like Link and Roy, to down throw/forward air against Floaties like Jigglypuff and Peach, and finally to down throw reaction tech chases against Fox, Falco, and Captain Falcon. Most players are often scared of this powerful approach option, so in response opponents will use movement tricks to bait out the dash grab with things such as dash dancing, wave dash backwards, and overall just being hard to catch on the ground and on platforms.

Some players attempt to predict Sheik with a spot dodge which also gives the same opportunities as baiting out Sheik’s grab, but it is usually worse because it gives Sheik an opportunity to catch them because the opponent is standing still. An example of this is with Jigglypuff and Fox and how they punish Sheik the most off of a missed grab. By Sheik missing a grab it will lead into either wave shining from Fox, which Sheik cannot get out of, or a Rest from Jigglypuff, which Sheik doesn't have an answer for when she returns to the stage.

At mid percent, a grab will still lead into true combos such as down throw forward air, up air, or back air which can either lead into a kill or put the opponent in a very disadvantageous position. Grabbing leads into edge guards, more damage, or even kill setups. Characters like Ganondorf and Bowser are still able to be chain grabbed at this percentage, but Sheik is able to now forward tilt and then follow that up with a true combo aerial which will most likely kill them. Jigglypuff and Marth are able to live from a Down throw forward air, however, they will be put into a disadvantageous position which leads to an edgeguard. Fox and Falco still need to be tech chased at this percentage however it is easier to mix them up with forward tilts and jabs in between grabs which will lead into another tech chase or a kill set up. Opponents cannot do anything against this so their hope is that Sheik messes up by missing the combo or hits them with a weak move such as the weak part of back air by using DI inwards towards Sheik.

At high percentages, Sheik basically has a kill combo on everyone. Down throw then forward air or up air will lead to a kill and if not, they are one stray hit away to losing a stock so start swinging. Down throw then neutral air works but it sometimes doesn’t kill but again they are super close to losing a stock at this point. On fast fallers, down throw then forward tilt sometimes leads into a kill option with forward air, but most likely they will DI away and off the stage which leads into an edgeguard or a stray hit of forward air eventually. Getting a grab into down throw is very good at a high percent, but the opponent will be even more cautious about this option.

Dash attacking and dash grabbing are the two options Sheik has to approach and everything else is essentially a glorified mix-up of the two. The reason why approaching is by far Sheik’s worst trait as a character is because these are her best options. To combat her weakness is to bait out the opponent by either being faster than their reaction or by setting the pace to something uncomfortable for them which would result in an opening. Some notable things Sheiks can do to approach is to forward air the opponent, run up towards the opponent and down smash, walk up and forward tilt, and slow approach with aerials.

These all get countered the same way as dash attack does with things like shielding, spot dodge, and crouch cancel. Sheik can get smash attacked from the opponent, wave shined, get grabbed, or get hit with the opponent’s own aerials by using these options still.

Another very notable option is aerial Needles into grab because the opponent either needs to shield but will still get grabbed or the opponent will get hit by the needles and will still get grabbed. This can, however, be countered the same way as dash attack was countered with either crouch cancels and a well-timed attack, or by simply getting out of the way because Sheik’s short hop is one of the highest in the game. Dashing back and forth and baiting these options is the simplest way to combat all of Sheik’s approach options, so to win for Sheik is to catch the opponent.

Sheiks can sometimes get away with these tricks because they are mix-ups, but against experienced players, Sheiks usually have a hard time with this part of her kit because it is very exploitable. Experienced Sheik players have problems with this, however, they are good players because they mask Sheik’s weaknesses with movement to find an opening, mix-ups to capitalize on openings, and patients to create openings.

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