Sheik (SSBU)

Sheik (, Sheik) is a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. She was officially confirmed on June 12th, 2018 alongside and the rest of the returning roster. Sheik is classified as Fighter #16.

As with, this is the first time in the series to not have Sheik voiced by Jun Mizusawa since Super Smash Bros. Melee; as a result of Zelda's -based recast, now also voices Sheik, continuing the trend from the former voicing both characters in the previous games.

Sheik is currently ranked 35th out of 82 characters placing her in A- tier. This is a large drop from her previous ranking in Super Smash Bros. 4, where she was ranked 4th out of 54. Sheik's biggest strengths revolve primarily around her unrivaled frame data, which grants her an amazing neutral game, strong edgeguarding game, and strong advantage state. Her speed complements this fast frame data by allowing her to stuff out opponents and rack up damage by performing long combo strings. Finally, Sheik has a strong set of specials, as Needle Storm gives Sheik a useful projectile for zoning, camping or setting up for a KO with Bouncing Fish; while both Bouncing Fish and Vanish gives Sheik a versatile recovery.

However, Sheik has several noticeable weaknesses. Her most prominent weakness is her poor endurance, as her high falling speed and gravity makes her prone to combos, while her lightweight makes her relatively easy to KO at earlier percents. On the other hand, due to her moves' low power and damage, Sheik may have trouble KOing if she is unable to connect any of her KO confirms. This allows her opponents to live up to high percents, giving them rage and making it easier for them to KO Sheik. Finally, Sheik's grab game is sub-par, as none of her throws can KO at realistic percents while her best throws cannot reliably set up into combos at high percents.

Overall, Sheik is a character that excels at combing and racking up damage, however her subpar KO ability and endurance at high percents makes her prone to comebacks. Although opinions on her were low in the early metagame, they have since shifted in a more positive light thanks to the effort of players such as, , , and.

How to unlock
Complete one of the following: With the exception of the third method, Sheik must then be defeated on Gerudo Valley. In World of Light, she is fought on.
 * Play VS. matches, with Sheik being the 47th character to be unlocked.
 * Clear with  or any character in his unlock tree, being the 5th character unlocked after.
 * Have Sheik join the player's party in World of Light.

Attributes
Sheik is a character that, like a ninja of sorts, fits the "hit-and-run" character archetype. One of Sheik's greatest strengths is her overall mobility, being among the best in the game both grounded and aerial. She also has the 4th highest gravity, which makes her mobility better, but leaves her more vulnerable to horizontal knockback. Her crouch is also very low, making her difficult to hit when doing so. Sheik can also wall cling and crawl. However, she is the 6th-lightest character in the game, which when coupled with her gravity and tall height, these traits collectively make her very susceptible to combos and KO's, thus giving her very frail survivability overall.

Aside from her excellent mobility, another one of Sheik's greatest strengths is her extremely quick frame data. Easily one of if not the fastest in the game. With all of her moves with the exception of her down aerial and smash attacks coming out under 6 frames and all having very minimal ending lag, making her extremely difficult to punish properly; this is supplemented by the good range of her moveset. She also has an excellent projectile in Needle Storm, with the needles charging and traveling fast, being long-ranged (covers about half of Final Destination), possessing transcendent priority, causing hitstun, and having overall low cool down (especially when used in the air or on landing). These traits collectively give Sheik a strong camping ability and as well as allowing for versatile follow-ups off of her needles.

Overall, the combination of Sheik's mobility, projectiles, range and frame data form her greatest strength: her outstanding neutral game. She can play both defensively, by pressuring and zoning from afar without much trouble, or aggressively, with her fast attack speed giving her an unpredictable approach. Sheik can poke and pressure her opponents with her aerials and tilts, all of which are safe options. If they choose to drop their shield, they are wide open to these attacks. At the same time, holding shield presents her with an opportunity to grab and use her throw set-ups.

Sheik's excellent frame data, combined with the low power of many of her moves, give her among the best combo abilities in the game. Her throws can easily lead to other attacks, with her forward and down throws being particularly effective at starting combos, as they can set up long chains of forward aerials, with her up aerial and Bouncing Fish being useful combo finishers. Her combos are not limited to her air game; all of her tilts can start and extend combos since they send opponents into the air, and can confirm into aerials; her forward tilt particularly has reliable follow-ups all the way into KO percents. Down tilt, while not chaining into itself as effectively, has even lower power, giving her access to KO confirms as well.

All aspects of Sheik's moveset are solid overall. The majority of her aerial moves possess great versatility; forward aerial, in particular, has a fast startup, decent ending lag, auto-cancels in a short hop fast fall, and has slightly disjointed range, making it an all-purpose move: it can be used to approach, pressure, combo and set up edge-guards. Up aerial similarly possesses great utility: its looping hits can be used to drag down opponents to extend combos or lead into KOs depending on positioning, much like 's own up aerial. Additionally, it is her strongest aerial, and also launches opponents at a great angle for juggling, both of which give it good utility at both KOing and finishing combos. Her back aerial is also versatile to an extent, as it can be used to extend or finish combos as well. When sweet spotted (at the foot), it can KO at high percents near the ledge and is even safer on shield than her forward aerial. Lastly, neutral aerial is her fastest aerial, allowing her to break out of combos and extend or finish hers, notably into Bouncing Fish.

Outside of Needle Storm, Sheik's special moveset also possesses good utility. Her up special, Vanish, grants her intangibility and invisibility, which collectively make it difficult for the opponent to predict where she will reappear. It also has a hitbox on disappearance that is moderately strong, and another one and a windbox when she reappears, making it difficult to punish. Meanwhile, Sheik's down special Bouncing Fish, is famous for being her primary KO move, being similar to Flip Jump on some regards: it deals respectable damage with high knockback scaling, can finish combos from her neutral aerial, forward aerial, back aerial, and aerial Needle Storm, and is safe on shield when retreating. Sheik can perform consecutive stronger kicks after the first, although this sees almost no use in normal gameplay.

Both Vanish and Bouncing Fish also conform Sheik's last strength in her recovery, as they make it versatile and extendable, both of them can be used in tandem with each other, and they are difficult and risky to intercept, as they both deal high knockback enough to interrupt an edge-guard. Combined with her wall jump, this makes Sheik hard to edge-guard or gimp, without disabling her double jump, and enables her to reverse edge-guard effectively.

However, despite having immense strengths, Sheik has polarizing flaws. The most notable of them is her frailty: despite the fact that her recovery is amazing, in a similar vein to, her on-stage endurance is very weak due to her very lightweight (being lighter than characters such as ), succumbing to even decently strong blows, whereas her above average height, high falling speed and gravity make her easy to combo. This is further compounded by her notoriously poor damage output overall: despite her strong damage racking ability, she requires extremely long strings of attacks just to do the same amount of damage that the vast majority of the cast can inflict in noticeably far fewer hits, making her arguably the weakest fighter in the game in terms of general damage and knockback in her moveset.

While the low damage and power on her moves grant her an extensive combo game, Sheik also struggles to securely score KOs due to her handful of KO options and each of them being difficult to land precisely. Her up smash has a powerful first hit on her arms as she raises them, but it is difficult to land outside of a read or confirm, is hampered by its much weaker second hit as she lowers her arms and is very punishable if missed, her forward and down smash are among the weakest smash attacks of their kind, and they have punishable ending lag as well, while Vanish's disappearing hitbox is hard to land. In the air, she is limited to using her up aerial, back aerial, or Bouncing Fish to KO, and even then, the former two require to be used close to the blast lines due to their relatively weak knockback, whereas the latter is susceptible to DI and is predictable without a setup on top of KOing considerably later center-stage compared to the edge, making her often reliant on dragging her opponent close to the blast zone in order to secure a KO.

Furthermore, Sheik's aerial KO setups are difficult to pull off due to Ultimate's faster pace and launch physics, re-addition of directional air dodges, and the weakening of her neutral and back aerials' respective combo potentials. Her other aerials are otherwise only useful for edge-guarding and gimping characters with particularly weak or linear recoveries due to their abysmal KO power or sacrificial use. Sheik's grab game is also below-average overall: she lacks throws that can KO at realistic percents, and while her aforementioned forward and down throws are useful combo starters, they have too much knockback for truly reliable KO set-ups.

With all of these weaknesses working against her, it is not uncommon for Sheik's opponents to survive in excess of 150%. When combined with her frailty, she is notoriously vulnerable to comebacks, even against fighters with generally mediocre KO potentials. Lastly, the rage mechanic hinders Sheik: without rage, she often has trouble KO'ing, though as her rage increases, her combo game slowly dwindles, which when combined with her poor damage output, can make bringing an opponent to KO percents difficult. Additionally, this brings opponents to a high level of rage enough to KO Sheik herself.

Other weaknesses include a few moves that have very low utility, despite Sheik's moveset versatility. These include her down aerial, which is her overall slowest aerial, has the highest landing lag and is a stall-then-fall, giving it the lowest utility of Sheik's aerial moveset despite it meteor smashing an opponent. Her dash attack, although very quick, is unsafe on shield due to its inability to cross-up and does not KO at realistic percents. Her up throw similarly does not KO at realistic percents and is her least useful throw, as it lacks the utility her other throws have. Sheik's smash attacks are unsafe and difficult to land overall, although they are fast enough to work as combo finishers. Lastly, Burst Grenade is powerful but has a slow explosion, which limits it to situational usage on edge-guarding predictable recoveries, extending the damage of a hard punish, or a situational mix-up to deter edge-guarders.

Altogether, Sheik's strengths slightly outweigh her weaknesses. While she has an outstanding neutral game owing to her excellent frame data and mobility, she often has to play a very long game due to her slow damage output. At that point, Sheik has to play an entirely different playstyle and try to look for openings to land her KO confirms. Nevertheless, Sheik's strengths and the myriad of buffs she received from game updates have resulted in many top players having an overall positive view on her viability, especially compared to the early meta when she was commonly considered a low-tier character.

Changes from Super Smash Bros. 4
Sheik was considered one of the most potent characters in SSB4 (and the best character in the middle of the game's lifetime), due to her nearly uncontested neutral game; despite receiving the most nerfs from game updates that did affect her effectiveness, she remained a top tier character. Possibly as a result, while Sheik has received a large mix of buffs and nerfs, the latter is more prevalent since they have worsened her strengths while amplifying her weaknesses from the previous game. Thus, Sheik has been greatly nerfed overall in her transition to Ultimate.

Sheik's most notable nerfs are to her already weak damage output and her poor survivability. Her main combo moves like her tilts and neutral and forward aerials (most notably the latter), in addition to Needle Storm and Bouncing Fish, all deal less damage. This gives Sheik a notoriously harder time racking up damage, requiring her to string much more hits just to deal any noticeable damage; this is exacerbated by her lack of KO ability. Although the weakening of rage has slightly improved her endurance and, most importantly, her combo consistency, this is counterbalanced by her lower weight, now being even lighter than small characters such as and  while also worsening her already lackluster KO potential. As a result, Sheik is unable to take significant advantage of rage, much like in SSB4.

The universal changes to the game's engine have both benefitted and hindered Sheik, but have hurt her overall. The game's faster launch physics, changes to jostling mechanics (which prevent cross-ups and instead pushes characters away), and the reintroduction of directional air dodges worsen many of Sheik's combo strings and KO set-ups. Furthermore, the prevalence of the newly introduced 0.85x short hop multiplier on aerial attacks means Sheik doesn't benefit as much from the new 1v1 multiplier as the rest of the cast, due to her semi-reliance on aerials done out of a short hop; combined with the lower damage on her combo moves, this further exacerbates her worsened damage racking ability. While Sheik does benefit from the universally faster jumpsquats, mobility and lower landing lag like the rest of the cast, she already had highly impressive mobility and the overall fastest frame data in SSB4, which causes the rest of the cast to benefit more than her from their buffs in those aspects, allowing them to keep up with her.

However, Sheik has received some useful buffs besides the universal changes. Her running speed has increased even further, now being the 4th fastest among the cast. Her neutral infinite connects more reliably and has less ending lag, making it more consistent for damage racking despite its individual hits dealing less damage. Her up tilt, down tilt and Needle Storm (especially the aerial version) also have less ending lag, improving their combo potential.

Sheik's generally least useful moves in SSB4, such as her dash attack, down smash, down aerial and up throw, each deal more damage and/or knockback. Her smash attacks as a whole have also been buffed, with forward smash and down smash's hits connecting more reliably, and up smash's first hit having more power and slightly more range. Burst Grenade has less ending lag and no longer causes helplessness, while Vanish grants more intangibility when used on the ground. Sheik has a new pummel that has gone from one of the slowest to one of the fastest, allowing it to be used more safely and rack up more damage. Finally, and most notably, her back aerial now deals more damage and knockback, improving its previously lacking KO potential when sweetspotted (though it still remains relatively weak).

In the end, Sheik's nerfs noticeably outweigh her buffs, as the former have both worsened her key strengths and exacerbated her main flaws, while the latter was not significant enough to compensate despite giving her more consistent options. Game updates have been generally kind to Sheik, giving her some miscellaneous buffs and fixing a few inconsistencies with her moveset; general optimizations to her playstyle have also proven benefitial. Nevertheless, Sheik performs worse than her SSB4 iteration, and is one of the most nerfed characters in the transition to Ultimate.

Update history
Sheik was buffed via game updates. Beginning with update 2.0.0, she received a few quality of life buffs. The hitbox of up smash's first hit was enlarged, allowing it to catch landings better and hit a larger number of tall and/or large characters when they are standing right next to Sheik. Down smash's first hit received an additional hitbox in order to improve its consistency. Forward aerial's edge lockout duration was decreased significantly, which made it much safer to use while off-stage. Up aerial auto-cancels earlier, which made it slightly better for drag down combos. Lastly, Burst Grenade's ending lag was decreased, which made it slightly safer as an edge-guarding option.

Update 3.0.0 brought a few buffs as well, three of which were noteworthy. Firstly, down tilt's sourspots were shrunken and repositioned, which made the sweetspot easier to land and thus improved the move's combo potential. Secondly, forward aerial became more reliable at hitting small fighters, thanks to its hitboxes being repositioned. Lastly, Needle Storm reaches its full charge noticeably faster. Aside from these these buffs, neutral infinite became slightly safer via its finisher's ending lag being decreased.

Update 7.0.0 further buffed Sheik in a number of ways, most notably in regard to Needle Storm and Burst Grenade. Needle Storm has less landing lag, improving its safety and combo potential. Burst Grenade's ending lag was decreased even further, its explosion has more active frames, and it can no longer be canceled out by attacks; altogether, these buffs addressed the move's primary flaws that have plagued it since SSB4.

In addition, a handful of Sheik's underwhelming moves were also improved to varying degrees. Down smash's overall lag was decreased and its hits connect even better than before. Vanish's disappearing hitbox KOs noticeably earlier, thanks to its knockback being increased. Standing grab's range was increased, which mildly restored one of her former out of shield options. Lastly, Sheik's shield was enlarged as part of a near-universal buff.

Following this, update 8.0.0 improved forward smash's consistency by adjusting its first hit's launching angles and knockback, as well as increasing the range of its second hit. Lastly, update 9.0.0 followed a similar format in regard to up tilt by increasing its first hit's hitstun in order to ensure it connects into its second hit, even against sufficiently fast combo breakers.

Overall, Sheik fares better than she did at the launch of Ultimate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moveset
For a gallery of Sheik's hitboxes, see here.
 * Sheik can crawl, wall cling, and wall jump.

On-screen appearance

 * Appears from a whirlwind that scatters a few leaves.

Taunts

 * Up taunt: Performs the pike (a breakdancing move).
 * Side taunt: Pulls out the she uses for Burst Grenade and stretches it out, which emits a "twang" sound.
 * Down taunt: A modified version of the (a blocking technique in ).

Idle poses

 * Rears back her left hand up to her face, then quickly swings it outward.
 * Performs a modified passé.

Crowd cheer
 

Victory poses

 * Left: Performs her forward tilt (Cycle Kick) and then her down smash (Windmill) before striking a pose with her arms crossed in front of her face.
 * Up: Performs the first two hits of her neutral attack (Kodachi + Reverse Kodachi), then stands up while rearing back her right hand up to her face.
 * Right: Performs the fumikomi geri (a stomp-style kick in karate), followed by a mid-level side kick, and then performs the tate shuto uke (a blocking technique in ).

Most historically significant players
See also: Category:Sheik players (SSBU)


 * - Picked up Sheik during the pandemic and has been one of the best Sheik players in the world since, with several major placements at or near the top 8, including 4th at and 7th at both  and.
 * - Began playing more Sheik in 2022 and is Europe's best Sheik player. He was also a top 5 player in Europe in 2022 and was ranked 47th on the UltRank 2022 due to regularly placing at or near top 8 at European events, which included 2nd at and 9th at.
 * - One of the best Sheik players in North America who is also a top 10 player in Mexico. Most notably placing 9th at the supermajor defeating, and has also placed 9th at  and 25th at  and . He was also ranked 86th on the UltRank 2022.
 * - One of the best Sheik players in Japan since 2022 who regularly places top 64 at and  events. He most notably placed 7th at the major  defeating  and.
 * - The best Sheik player in the early metagame, where he played the character alongside, placing 5th at and 9th at . He was also the first Sheik player ranked on a global ranking, ranking 38th on the Fall 2019 PGRU. Although less active in the current metagame, he has still seen some strong performances, including upsetting  at.
 * - One of the best Sheik players in the world since 2023. His best performance to date was 9th at the supermajor defeating  and ; he has also placed 7th at  and 25th at.

Tier placement and history
During Ultimate's early metagame, Sheik's representation was almost nonexistent due to the significance of her nerfs. With the reduction of her overall damage output, Sheik became notorious for having long combos that only amounted to the equivalent of 2-3 stray hits that the opponents dealt. As a result, much of her playerbase dropped her entirely due to the perception that she was a high effort, low reward character, and she was regularly considered a mid-to-low tier by the community.

Updates granted Sheik several useful buffs that improved her best moves. Furthermore, some of Sheik's former players -- most notably and  -- began picking her up again and showcased how Sheik's neutral game and advantage state, while not as prevalent as in the previous game, were still rather strong. This led many to consider Sheik as underrated in the metagame, and this is most apparent in Japan, who believed Sheik was a top tier character; this resulted in Japan having several notable Sheik players place highly at tournaments, most notably. Her improving results and increasing representation helped shift opinions on her viability. As it stands, Sheik is ranked 35th on the current tier list, with Japan notably ranking Sheik 10 places higher. Still, some player believe the character should be ranked higher due to her ability to overwhelm opponents, as well as the rise of many other Sheik players such as.

: Masquerade
Sheik's opponents, like her, are characters who wear masks or other forms of headwear to conceal their identity.

Credits roll after completing Classic Mode. Completing it as Sheik has  accompany the credits.

Role in World of Light
Although Sheik does not appear in the World of Light opening cutscene, she was vaporized and later imprisoned alongside the rest of the fighters (sans ) when Galeem unleashed his beams of light.

During the mode itself, Sheik can be unlocked early on shortly after rescuing, where the player arrives at a crossroad and has the choice to rescue her, or. If one of the others is rescued first, Sheik's path will be blocked by a force field created by, which will disappear upon defeating a boss or can be circumvented by looping back to the other side.

Sheik has a separate awakening battle from, who appears in the opening cutscene.

Spirit
Sheik's fighter spirit can be obtained by completing. It is also available periodically for purchase in the shop for 300 Gold, but only after Sheik has been unlocked. Unlocking Sheik in World of Light allows the player to preview the spirit below in the Spirit List under the name "???". As a fighter spirit, it cannot be used in Spirit Battles and is purely aesthetic. Her fighter spirit has an alternate version that replaces it with her artwork in Ultimate.

Trivia

 * Sheik is erroneously referred to as male on the Smash Blog despite being referred to as female in every Smash appearance thus far, as well as on various other official Nintendo social websites.   and Viridi refer to Sheik with male pronouns in Palutena's Guidance, albeit the latter instance is done for comedic purposes as  then mentions her being an alter-ego of Zelda.
 * Ultimate is the first Smash game where Sheik's design is based on a different The Legend of Zelda game than her alter-ego,.
 * Ultimate is also the first installment in the series that gives Sheik a Final Smash different from Zelda's.
 * Sheik is the only The Legend of Zelda character:
 * Who doesn't fight characters from her own series.
 * Who does not travel to her home stages in her Classic Mode route.
 * Who doesn't appear on the full group artwork version of the box cover.
 * Sheik is the only The Legend of Zelda character who debuted in Melee that is not unlocked in the Sacred Land sub-area in World of Light and, by extension, is not controlled by Galeem.
 * In English, Sheik and are the only characters whose Classic Mode titles are each one word.
 * Coincidentally, both Sheik and Joker have similar playstyles (fast characters with weak, damage-racking attacks).
 * Like in the previous installment, Sheik will revert to her Brawl idle animation while holding a small throwable item.
 * Sheik briefly also does her Brawl idle animation after doing an attack.
 * In Palutena's Guidance, Sheik is referred to in the sense of having been present before in Smash ("Sheik appears to be wearing a traditional Sheikah outfit this time around."), despite every other newly recorded The Legend of Zelda character guidance bringing up the characters having separate incarnations throughout the franchise (Ganondorf being the same person, Link being a different person than before, and Zelda and Young Link being specific incarnations). This implies that she's the same version of Zelda/Sheik seen in Brawl and SSB4, in which her design was created for Brawl as a hypothetical transformation of the Twilight Princess incarnation of Zelda.