Sheik (Super Smash Flash 2)

Sheik is a 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.

Changes from 1.0.3.2.
Sheik received buffs and nerfs, but was buffed overall. Her mobility was increased, and her kill options as well as her combo game, were slightly improved.

Trivia

 * Steven 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.