Sheik (Super Smash Flash 2)

Sheik is a playable veteran starter character in Super Smash Flash 2. She can transform into. Her sprites are custom made and based on her planned appearance in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess with major improvements in her fighting style. Her voice clips come from Super Smash Bros. Melee.

Sheik ranks 15th of B+ tier on the current tier list, six spots lower from her 9th place of A tier last tier list. Sheik has good combo ability, great dashing speed, an amazing grab & throw game, fast attacks and strong finishers in her sweet spotted up smash, down smash, forward aerial, back aerial and down aerial. Sheik has a good edge guarding game and is very good at gimping her opponents. She has one of the best grab & throw games in the demo, having one of the longest grabs while also having a set of very useful throws.

However, Sheik suffers from a poor recovery that covers little vertical and horizontal distance, while also having an awkward Invincibility frames window. Sheik is also tall which makes her easy to hit; this, combined with her below average weight, though she is not far from being a medium weight, makes her easy to KO or knock her too far offstage to recover. She also finds trouble KOing on stage, as most of her strongest moves are best used for edgeguarding or gimping, and the sweet spot of her up smash is hard to connect with and down smash is hard to combo into.

Sheik has a very strong presence in online tournaments, with many top players using her to great effect. This can be attributed to her low skill floor combined with her high skill ceiling allowing her to be a strongly viable solo main in both low and high level play.

Attributes
Sheik has good ground mobility with having the seventh fastest dashing speed. Sheik has good combo ability with her up and forward tilt, up throw, down tilt, down and forward throws at low percent being excellent combo starters. She has reliable KO moves in her forward air, sweet spotted back air, sweet spotted up smash, down air and down smash. She has a good projectile in Needle Storm, which she can use to camp, gimp her opponents as they try to recover and stop her opponents approach.

She has one of the best grab and throw games in the demo, with the seventh longest grab range. She has a very useful set of throws, with up throw being her best combo throw due to the amount of hitstun it leaves the opponent in at low to death percentages for great follow ups. It is also a chain grab on fast fallers. Back throw is good by the ledge for setting up edge guarding situations, which for the most part are in Sheik's favor. It can also be used on stage to set up tech chasing situations. Her down throw is her strongest throw, which is good for follow ups at low to mid-low percents, but can be easily D.I.'ed which leaves for hardly any reliable follow ups at mid to high percentages. Arguably her worst throw is her forward throw, which even at low percents, allows for little follow up options due to the low amount of hitstun the move grants. It can hardly chain grab high fallers or at low percentages. Although it can set up tech chasing situations on and  at low to mid percents.

Her ground game, though goes mostly unnoticed is excellent, with the aforementioned tilts being great tools. Forward tilt is good for starting and extending combos while also allowing for grab follow ups. Down tilt is good for getting pokes in while also popping opponents in the air to start combos. Up tilt is a good anti-air option while also covering most of Sheik's body.

However, Vanish covers little vertical and horizontal distance, while also having an awkward invincibility frame window that leaves her vulnerable to being edge guarded or gimped. This is also furthered exacerbated by it not having a hitbox at the end of the move, but a windbox which leaves her susceptible to being edge hogged if she is not next to the opponent on the ledge during the hitbox portion of the move. Another problem is the landing lag she receives when she tries to recover on stage, which leaves her open if the windbox is shielded or it does not connect with the opponent. The windbox can also be reflected, pushing her offstage and into a helpless state, even if she landed on the ground.

Her slightly below average weight makes her easy to knock off stage while also allowing for her to be KO'ed earlier than middle weights. She also heavily relies on edgeguarding to get kills due to most of her on stage KO moves being hard to connect with or situational. Although this problem is not as big as it was last demo or her incarnations in the main Super Smash Bros. games.

She also lacks options to defend herself from below due to a lack of landing options which gives her trouble when it comes to being juggled, especially by characters with range or disjointed range up tilts. Down air is too slow to be used effectively to escape due to its slow start up and low priority. Needle, although a good projectile with many uses, has little priority, even when charged, allowing characters with high priority to cancel them out.

Ground attacks

 * Standard attack: Does a quick punch. Can be interrupted into a grab or another attack. 3%
 * Standard attack 2: Throws a second punch at opponent with other hand. 3%
 * Standard attack 3: Starts thrusting her hand rapidly. 2% per hit
 * Down tilt: Leg sweeps her opponent. Can be used as a combo starter and can combo into an aerial at high percentages. 8%
 * Down smash: Spins legs around and gets back up. Uncharged 13%, Fully charged 18-19%. Does strong knockback on all hits of the move.
 * Side tilt: Sweeps her leg forward, then takes it back. Can lock certain characters, can combo into an up smash if the opponent decides to D.I. in and can combo into aerials at high percentages. 5%
 * Forward smash: Unleashes 2 consecutive kicks. Uncharged 1st kick does 5%, 2nd kick does 12% total 17%. Fully charged 1st kick does 7%, 2nd kick deals 17% total  24%.
 * Up tilt: Does a one-handed handstand, puts leg upward, then brings it down. Good anti air option. 7%
 * Up smash: Puts hand up, then to the side. Uncharged 13% (17% when sweet spotted), Fully charged 19% (24% when sweet spotted).
 * Dash attack: Does a charging headbutt. Does good knockback and can link into each other on high and fast fallers. 7%

Aerial attacks

 * Neutral aerial: Does a sex kick. 14%
 * Forward aerial: Swings one hand and strikes opponent. Does very good knockback that semi-spikes opponents. Can be used repeatly at low percentages, can be used to gimp recoveries and can KO most characters starting from 75%. It is stronger then its Melee counterpart. 13%
 * Back aerial: Kicks behind her. Does good knockback in the initial frames of the move. 12%
 * Up aerial: Upside down leg twirl. Good at combo'ing on high and fast fallers. 12%
 * Down aerial: Thrusts one leg downward hard. Does good vertical knockback if the foot connects, but does good horizontal knockback if hit by the hip. 12%

Grabs & throws

 * Grab: Sheik grabs the opponent
 * Pummel: Jabs opponent. 2%
 * Forward throw: Throws a powerful punch at her opponent. Can chain grab, but can be easily escaped due to the low hitstun of the move which also makes it not a reliable combo starter. Can set up tech chases on fast fallers, with the exception of Bomberman. 10%
 * Back throw: Pulls opponent behind her and back kicks them. Good near the ledge for gimping opponents. 8%
 * Up throw: Grabs opponent, falls onto her back and kicks opponent into the air. Can chain grab fast and high fallers, can start combos and lead into any aerials at low to death percentages as well. 6%
 * Down throw: Throws opponent to ground and then performs an axe-kick on them, which sends them up depending on D.I. 5%

Other

 * Ledge attack: Gets up and leg sweeps the opponent. Good knockback. 6%
 * Floor attack: Gets up and spins around. 4%

Misc.

 * On-screen appearance: Appears out from a cloud of smoke.
 * Taunts:
 * Neutral: Gets in a stance and raises her hand up.
 * Up/Down: Stands on her hand.
 * Side: Same as neutral taunt.
 * Victory theme: Remix of Victory fanfare from Super Smash Bros Brawl.
 * Wins: Vanishes away.
 * Loses: Claps for the winner.

Changes from v0.9a
Sheik mainly received buffs to her KO moves. Sheik benefits from the decreased hitstun of the demo by her being harder to combo while still being able to combo like last demo. However, Sheik has a harder time chain grabbing certain characters now. Due to advances in the metagame, she is seen as a more effective character then she was last demo.

Trivia

 * Steven Damian Borgers stated that Sheik, and  were his hardest character projects. In Sheik's case it was due to how she would bend her body when attacking and how she moved. Her down smash was difficult to animate.