Balancing Max Sheik

[Kien]

Reading over some things in the tier list thread made me think abut things. I coded Sheik to be a combo character who could easily score KOs when the time came. She fits this bill perfectly, but hearing that her uair and ftilt could be spammed to easily rack up damage bothers me. So, some things that need addressing are those two moves.

Ftilt- if it currently combos into itself too easily and allows her to walk people across the stage, then the proper change would in my opinion be to increase the growth. That way as the opponent gets more damaged, the move starts sending them farther away. Would this be a suitable fix?

Uair- I'm assuming this move is only overpowered because of how it functions. On a character with multiple jumps and easy off the roof kill potential it's hard to fix. Giving it growth or base would make it kill easier, while reducing either of those would make it combo into itself for longer. Set kb could be thing? Or it could have a different trajectory.

Does anything else seem to need nerfing? I'm a fan of her Ftilt jump cancel on hit but I wouldn't be against pushing it back a few frames to make it more punishable. (Even if only by Perfect Blocking or quick jab characters.)

 

[Glyph]

I'd say your proposed fixes would get things running a lot more smoothly for ftilt, but I think Uair is fine the way it is.

 

[Kien]

Hmm, alright then. Thanks. I'll do something about that when I get the time and okay.

 

[Tybis]

Full disclosure; I play against a Shiek-maining friend. I WILL have bais against Shiek.

Shiek is good for a good number of reasons... more than simply those 3 attacks (but they certainly help).
Her UpB feels totally unpunishable when used correctly.
Her Fair and Uair are both amazing KO tools, which she leads into alarmingly often.
She overall has very little lag on most attacks.

I'd say add a few frames of lag after the second set of hitboxes come out when she reappears during UpB. Maybe a few frames of lag on her aerials unless she hits with them? She's a brick wall of pain in capable hands.

Unrelated; it be made so that Shiek/Zelda won't transform unless B is HELD? Both my friend and I accidentally transform semi-often. Not sure if anyone else suffers from this though.

 

[Kien]

Full disclosure; I play against a Shiek-maining friend. I WILL have bais against Shiek.

Shiek is good for a good number of reasons... more than simply those 3 attacks (but they certainly help).
Her UpB feels totally unpunishable when used correctly.
Her Fair and Uair are both amazing KO tools, which she leads into alarmingly often.
She overall has very little lag on most attacks.

I'd say add a few frames of lag after the second set of hitboxes come out when she reappears during UpB. Maybe a few frames of lag on her aerials unless she hits with them? She's a brick wall of pain in capable hands.

Unrelated; it be made so that Shiek/Zelda won't transform unless B is HELD? Both my friend and I accidentally transform semi-often. Not sure if anyone else suffers from this though.

I like the idea of the holding B to transform. I don't have plans to nerf her aerials by way of lag either. It seems like it's limiting for the sake of limiting. Sheik isn't the only wall of pain in Minus, and I wouldn't even say she was the best. She only has 3 jumps.

 

[NEWB]

Sheiks combo potential is insane. I don't think giving ftilt more knockback actually does anything to nerf her since that just means she will JC on hit and do an aerial anyway. It does nerf her damage output though, so it could help. I just think that ftilt never needed a JC in the first place since it has range and little end lag. The range keeps people from punishing sheik if she hits a sheild unlike her other JC moves that can be punished on whiff. I would say give her more knockback like you suggested or remove the JC intirely from ftilt, which is what I would do. It makes more sense, right?

I would vote for changing her Uair trajectory to a diagonal upward hit. This would also effect it's kill ability which needs to be toned down slightly.

Her upb is the best counter in the game when used right as Tybis says. Maybe the grounded upb can be reworked to better suit the counter. Like it makes her go up everytime she uses it so she can be punished for miss timing it or using it predictably. Or keep the option to go only straight left, right, stand still, and up. Going up leaves her vulnerable, staying still or going left or right would leave her on the ground with some lag and would NOT have a reappearing hitbox.

Let's do one thing at a time though.

Also second the thing about needing to hold b to STAY as zelda or sheik. Most people are used to not needing to do anything when changing characters and you should need to do something for messing up, not everyone else. This is a thing because people mess up doing two sideb with zelda.

 

[Kien]

Sheiks combo potential is insane. I don't think giving ftilt more knockback actually does anything to nerf her since that just means she will JC on hit and do an aerial anyway. It does nerf her damage output though, so it could help. I just think that ftilt never needed a JC in the first place since it has range and little end lag. The range keeps people from punishing sheik if she hits a sheild unlike her other JC moves that can be punished on whiff. I would say give her more knockback like you suggested or remove the JC intirely from ftilt, which is what I would do. It makes more sense, right?

I would vote for changing her Uair trajectory to a diagonal upward hit. This would also effect it's kill ability which needs to be toned down slightly.

Her upb is the best counter in the game when used right as Tybis says. Maybe the grounded upb can be reworked to better suit the counter. Like it makes her go up everytime she uses it so she can be punished for miss timing it or using it predictably. Or keep the option to go only straight left, right, stand still, and up. Going up leaves her vulnerable, staying still or going left or right would leave her on the ground with some lag and would NOT have a reappearing hitbox.

Let's do one thing at a time though.

Also second the thing about needing to hold b to STAY as zelda or sheik. Most people are used to not needing to do anything when changing characters and you should need to do something for messing up, not everyone else. This is a thing because people mess up doing two sideb with zelda.

I'm up for changing trajectory on Uair. I'm not for nerfing her Up B for the sake of nerfing it though. That would completely ruin the reason her Vanish is so useful. If anything, I can nerf vanish and add ending lag to side tilt while adding the growth.

 

[NEWB]

That sounds fair.

 

[13131]

vanish is fine. sheik need options around the ledge and against reachy spamming..

how high of damage can ftilt lock to? is it only against very heavy characters? i haven't seen anyone get trapped like in vbrawl..

to me, uair is the only one of these moves that seems very lethally abusable. a very minor change could take care of that. slight angle to the KB to make it difficult to follow with itself, while leaving her other options for comboing.

 

[NEWB]

It's not even that. Sheik shouldn't combo out of Uair at all. She combos with literally everything else. Having one more move that doesn't combo won't hurt her at all.

 

[13131]

ask Samus what one or two big changes can do to you.
you'll find her somewhere on the other side of that blast line.

are we really going to minimize good characters to balance the game? if so, can we start discussing a nerf or two to ROB? Link? Lucario?

 

[NEWB]

Really? Your peeved about that? Turning uair into more of a kill move and less of a combo tool is more than fair. Sheik has three moves at best that don't combo, everything else does. That is more then most of the cast can say. Sheik isn't really losing anything at all if the suggested tweaks are made. Tweaks for those other guys are being discussed on both forums, so don't pretend that we don't want things done to them too. Balance and fairness are what the devs are striving to do.

 

[13131]

you've been calling for nerfs to everything that makes her a great character... not just changing uair from a kill combo to a.. kill move...

and yes, i loved 2.x samus and feel this time around she got Screwed.
ha
ha

 

[NEWB]

Huh? Not everything. I thought I was being reasonable. Ftilt combos into itself and other aerials and tilts at low percents. The JC Lon it lets it combo at all percents, and that's lame since other characters lose their combos at higher percents. It's also a very safe move because it has little end lag and range. That is why it should be adjusted. I didn't even bring up her Uair, but when it was pointed out, I agreed. I didn't say that her vanish was too good, I just agreed. I'm not the only one who thinks those moves need tweaking.

Look at the title of the thread. We are just trying to tone down sheik slightly. None of these adjustments even harm her terribly.

 

[Tybis]

If a character is balanced by simply lessening their strengths and removing their weaknesses, then that just leads to a more homogenized, less unique character. This doesn't excuse flat-out broken strength that has too much reward with too little risk though.. but that's another thing.

Anyways, this is why I suggested a little lag on UpB; so that she'll have the same strength in power and attack speed, yet must compensate for the small window of vulnerability near the end, and thus must be more careful.

I'm not for nerfing her Up B for the sake of nerfing it though. That would completely ruin the reason her Vanish is so useful. If anything, I can nerf vanish and add ending lag to side tilt while adding the growth.

Sorry if I've pulled this out of context from your response to NEWB. :roll:

This is actually the first time I've heard of Vanish being considered as a counter. I was under the impression that Vanish was useful in that it's an omni-directional, fast, and powerful attack that can end combos and win exchanges due to its invincibility (if you're careful). Compared to a traditional counter though, it has very very little risk. Marth/Ike/Peach risk themselves becoming severely punished in return for a surprise reversal, while with Shiek, the "counterattack" comes out regardless if you've out-thought your opponent (Lucario has also been guilty of this). By adding ending a bit of endlag, Shiek will have what I feel is a much-needed window of opportunity for the opponent to be able to counterplay.

 

[Kien]

Sheik seems good now right? She does to me. After her nerfs she feels solid and less OP. Her chain may be a bit useless but I don't think it's bad.

 

[NEWB]

Her up b is still a great counter. I actually haven't seen much of sheik lately. Has she been changed in any way?

Tybis said that she could use some endlag on the ground, and I think that is right. If the move hits, she won't be able to play off of it anyway, so I think that would be fair.

Sheik may not have been much of an issue, more like evryone else needs to get up to A tier.

 

[Kien]

Up B is still a great counter, but she suffers on miss now so that's fine.

 

[NEWB]

She does? Or she will?

 

[Kien]

last I checked she does.