Is chain grabbing cheap?

[Tien2500]

Are you guys serious? What kind of scrub s*** is this? You guys really spent 18 pages discussing the "cheapness" of a perfectly legitimate tactic? Is this Tactical discussion or General discussion?

First of all, the word cheap is the hallmark of the scrub, a meaningless term used to describe tactics that seem unbeatable. It should not be in the lexicon of any serious Smash player. You get better by coming up with ways to beat tactics that beat you. You do not whine about how "cheap" it is and how people shouldn't use it.
Have any of you guys read Sirlin's Playing to Win?

http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_PlayToWinPart1.htm

Read this and stop posting scrubby threads like this outside of General discussion.

Well we definitely shouldn't look at techniques and question whether or not a tactic should be allowed or not. Thats just silly.

But anyway Dedede's chaingrabbing isn't simply a matter of counterpicking though. Lets say I'm a Mario main. If I go into the first match using Mario I risk facing a Dedede and facing a near certain loss. Unless I am way way way way way better than my opponent and make less than three spacing errors throughout a match I lose.

Now lets say I don't face a Dedede in the blind round. I win. Now I have the choice to stay as Mario or switch. If I stay as Mario I run the risk of being counterpicked by a Dedede. So if I choose to stay as Mario I run a big risk.

Someone will undoubtedly say that all characters can be counterpicked. I main ZSS. The best counterpick for her would be Falco. But if someone of equal skill to me who does not know how to use Falco well tries to use him against me he will probably lose. In contrast any decent smasher can use Dedede against Mario and will most likely win unless again the Mario player is way way better than the Dedede player.

So the only safe situation to use Mario in is as a counterpick (obviously not against Dedede) or if you somehow know that your opponent will not use Dedede against you. This severely limits the usefulness of several characters.

 

[Wildfire393]

Chain grabs should be banned from serious play. This comes from somebody who has to abuse D3's chain grabs to win.

What is your reasoning for this? Normal, non-infinite chain grabs are an entirely legitimate strategy. They are simply an inescapable (usually-character specific) limited combo. If we ban Chaingrabs, do we also ban Sheik's Ftilt lock, that guarantees taking Fox (and some other characters) from ~30-90% inescapably? If not, what's the difference? And if so, where do we draw the line? Fox can Dair to generally 2 Utilts inescapably, which can get ~40% in one go. Is that bannable? We can't just break the game down into "Ok, you get to hit the other person once and then you gotta let them be able to move before they do something else" or it would become incredibly boring (and also favor stronger characters). It's a shame that the most viable true combos in the game are Grab-based, but those that are not infinite are entirely legitimate.

Infinite grabs are another story entirely. A small amount of muscle-memory should not guarantee a kill 100% of the time given a single grab (especially given that a grab is probably the easiest move to land in smash brothers).

 

[Barge]

Snakes tilts should not be banned. They're broken, but they're a large part of his metagame.
Chaingrabs should not be banned, they're a tool used by characters to gain some % and help control their position on stage. It's not cheap, just don't get grabbed or counterpick a stage made of platforms. Chaingrabs aren't infinites. Infinites, meanwhile, are debatable. =/

No ones saying they should be banned, they're just broken.

 

[kupo15]

Chain grabs should be banned from serious play. This comes from somebody who has to abuse D3's chain grabs to win.

Its only three grabs...dont allow yourself to fall in the hands of CGing over and over. That is DDD's metagame. I would say that you should be more worried about mk...

 

[aeghrur]

No ones saying they should be banned, they're just broken.

Lol, whoops, my misunderstanding.
Broken they are, but I feel that MK's Dtilt is broken now too considering it outranges U-tilt and first hit of F-tilt. :O

 

[Kitamerby]

Boo hoo Mario sucks against DDD.

Tough luck. Don't use Mario against DDD. If you want to ban infinites, you may as well ban ALL of the very few 0-Death combos in Brawl. Melee Fox, Melee Marth, and Melee Sheik all had death combos on nearly all the cast, and Sheik chaingrabbed over half of the cast to death.

For all general purposes, an "infinite" is nothing but a 0-Death combo. It just so happens that most of them involve grabs.

Mario is a bad matchup when against DDD.

 

[Tien2500]

Tough luck. Don't use Mario against DDD. If you want to ban infinites, you may as well ban ALL of the very few 0-Death combos in Brawl. Melee Fox, Melee Marth, and Melee Sheik all had death combos on nearly all the cast, and Sheik chaingrabbed over half of the cast to death.

For all general purposes, an "infinite" is nothing but a 0-Death combo. It just so happens that most of them involve grabs.

Mario is a bad matchup when against DDD.

Ummmm... apparently you didn't get it. Not only can you not use Mario against Dedede. You cannot use Mario in the first match of a set because you don't know if your opponent will be Dedede. If you win as Mario and you choose to stay as him you risk having Dedede as a counterpick.

So I'll rephrase this for you.

If you are a Mario main (or Samus, or Luigi etc.) It is not just "don't pick Mario against Dedede". It is you that you can ONLY pick Mario if

A) You are counterpicking.
B) You are for some reason absolutely sure your opponent will not use Dedede.

As for other infinites they are different in that they are more situational and are not relevant to what I said. (except maybe Marth/Ness). Melee is a different game entirely and is also not relevant.

 

[aeghrur]

To clear up, Marth/Ness is no longer an infinite because of EIDI.

 

[Tien2500]

Well thats good for Ness. What is EIDI exactly? (I gather that it is some form of DI).

 

[aeghrur]

Extra inch DI, like, smash DI but specifically for Ness/Lucas against taller characters, really only useful to stop the Marth grab release infinite.

 

[Kitamerby]

Ummmm... apparently you didn't get it. Not only can you not use Mario against Dedede. You cannot use Mario in the first match of a set because you don't know if your opponent will be Dedede. If you win as Mario and you choose to stay as him you risk having Dedede as a counterpick.

So I'll rephrase this for you.

If you are a Mario main (or Samus, or Luigi etc.) It is not just "don't pick Mario against Dedede". It is you that you can ONLY pick Mario if

A) You are counterpicking.
B) You are for some reason absolutely sure your opponent will not use Dedede.

As for other infinites they are different in that they are more situational and are not relevant to what I said. (except maybe Marth/Ness). Melee is a different game entirely and is also not relevant.

Tough luck. It's a risk you have to run if you choose to main Mario. If you're worried about it, you should get a new main, or only use Mario in those circumstances. It shouldn't matter, though. Of the unlucky 5, Only DK is really good enough that it should really matter in higher levels of play, since the other 4 wouldn't exactly thrive in a competitive environment even if they weren't chaingrabbed.

Also, Melee is completely relevant.

 

[bobson]

Tough luck. It's a risk you have to run if you choose to main Mario. If you're worried about it, you should get a new main, or only use Mario in those circumstances.

Alternatively, we could just rely on the TOs to have sense and not allow a tactic that literally guarantees the match by standing in one spot and using the same move over and over.

I guess sense is too much to ask, though.

 

[Tien2500]

Tough luck. It's a risk you have to run if you choose to main Mario. If you're worried about it, you should get a new main, or only use Mario in those circumstances. It shouldn't matter, though. Of the unlucky 5, Only DK is really good enough that it should really matter in higher levels of play, since the other 4 wouldn't exactly thrive in a competitive environment even if they weren't chaingrabbed.

Also, Melee is completely relevant.

I main ZSS so its not a personal thing for me but I do feel for anyone who mains a chaingrabbed character. None of them seem entirely hopeless aside from getting chaingrabbed though, particularly if an MK ban occured. And maybe without these handicaps people would play those characters more and develop their metagame further. Also I never advocated for a ban of chaingrabbing. I was just explaining the effect it had on those characters.

 

[HeroMystic]

Everyone shut the hell up about Mario vs DDD. The Mario boards has discussed this to death in the match-up thread and personally we're all tired of hearing about the infinite.

Personally, Mario can handle the infinite. We just have to play drastically different than what we usually do.

Besides, if you were the one doing infinities, you wouldn't want them banned. That's the way how I see it and that's why I don't swing the ban hammer around about it.

 

[Glick]

umm...yes they DO take skill. just try some fthrow chaingrabs with ice climbers...you'll be surprised at how precise the timing is...

It really isn't hard. I sat down and tried to learn it, and I got it in like 30 minutes perfectly.

 

[bobson]

Personally, Mario can handle the infinite. We just have to play drastically different than what we usually do.

Besides, if you were the one doing infinities, you wouldn't want them banned. That's the way how I see it and that's why I don't swing the ban hammer around about it.

Drastically different as in camp the entire game and never ever approach and hope the timer runs out before we take enough damage to lose the round anyway. Fireballs are the only hope for this match, and DK isn't so lucky in that regard.

And of course I wouldn't want the infinites banned if I was the one doing them; they're my free win button. That doesn't mean they aren't completely broken.

 

[Tien2500]

Everyone shut the hell up about Mario vs DDD. The Mario boards has discussed this to death in the match-up thread and personally we're all tired of hearing about the infinite.

Personally, Mario can handle the infinite. We just have to play drastically different than what we usually do.

Besides, if you were the one doing infinities, you wouldn't want them banned. That's the way how I see it and that's why I don't swing the ban hammer around about it.

That seemed unnecessarily angry. But Mario/Dedede was just an example. It could have been Dedede/Luigi or Dedede/Bowser it would've been the same thing. I think you kind of missed it. And this is a topic about chaingrabbing... so of course we're going to talk about chaingrabbing. If you're tired of hearing about chaingrabbing don't view a topic about chaingrabbing. And I can do infinites if I wanted to. Pretty much anyone with moderate tech skill can perform Dedede's chaingrab... I don't though... so there goes that argument.

 

[HeroMystic]

That seemed unnecessarily angry.

Nah, I'm mainly just tired and need some sleep, but I wanted to search around the boards before I did.

The Mario/DDD was an example yeah, but I was mainly agitated of hearing that the Infinite = death when in fact all it takes is a massive button mash to break out of it even at over 100% (Believe me. I've done this plenty of times when my friend tried to do this).

I'm fine with the chaingrab topic and I'm actually glad we got past the 10 pages of saying the same thing that can summed up to "YOU! NO YOU!"

And of course I wouldn't want the infinites banned if I was the one doing them; they're my free win button. That doesn't mean they aren't completely broken.

Indeed it is broken. Beyond broken in fact, and I would love it if it was banned because it would stop all of the BS about DK getting owned because of a grab and we Marios and Luigis can actually play like we normally do without giant fear stuck in the back of our minds. I don't like it as any much as you do... but the fact is, it won't be universally banned unless it affected at least half the cast. In which case, all we can do is just deal with it and don't get grabbed.

 

[-Mars-]

If infinites were banned, more lower tier characters would be getting some looks by different people. Their metagame would get better and the balance of Brawl would become better.

 

[bobson]

Indeed it is broken. Beyond broken in fact, and I would love it if it was banned because it would stop all of the BS about DK getting owned because of a grab and we Marios and Luigis can actually play like we normally do without giant fear stuck in the back of our minds. I don't like it as any much as you do... but the fact is, it won't be universally banned unless it affected at least half the cast. In which case, all we can do is just deal with it and don't get grabbed.

But why can't it? What is so precious about the infinite that even though it's plainly acknowledged as broken and unfair it cannot be banned until it reaches an arbitrary number of characters affected? "It only affects four characters" is really not a good enough reason for it to remain unbanned.

 

[Kitamerby]

But why can't it? What is so precious about the infinite that even though it's plainly acknowledged as broken and unfair it cannot be banned until it reaches an arbitrary number of characters affected? "It only affects four characters" is really not a good enough reason for it to remain unbanned.

Don't get grabbed. GGs.

They ban things that destroy and overcentralize the metagame as a whole. DDD being able to kill over half the cast on Bridge of Eldin is viable for a ban. Only 5 characters? Not so much. Also, Melee Sheik had 0-Death chaingrabs on over half the cast, and the entirety of the top tiers had 0-Death combos on nearly all the cast.

And yet they somehow managed to turn Melee into one of the most recognized fighting games of all time.

 

[Matador]

But why can't it? What is so precious about the infinite that even though it's plainly acknowledged as broken and unfair it cannot be banned until it reaches an arbitrary number of characters affected? "It only affects four characters" is really not a good enough reason for it to remain unbanned.

It's not an issue of those unlucky5 (or 4, whatever) being bad for competitive play OR D3's infinite. If that were the case, then yeah, I'd pretty much agree with you, since you probably wouldn't see anyone but the die-hard mains using them in tournament play for fear of the infinite anyway.

But that's not the case. It's not THAT big of a problem at this point. Its been beaten numerous times and there are viable methods of dealing with it. It's not broken if it's beatable.

Besides...banning something like D3's infinite is a terribly slippery slope to be on if even a FEW people come out triumphant at the end of the match. So many things would match the same reasoning for this being banned. Same deal with MK if I'm understanding that debate as well.

Don't get grabbed. GGs.

I seriously hate what this phrase reduces the game to. But yeah...this is how you win.

Also, Melee Sheik had 0-Death chaingrabs on over half the cast, and the entirety of the top tiers had 0-Death combos on nearly all the cast.

And yet they somehow managed to turn Melee into one of the most recognized fighting games of all time.

The difference between the CGs on Melee and the ones on Brawl were that grabs were harder to get on Melee (imo anyways. Shieldgrabbing didn't have the same oomph), and, more importantly, you still had control of your character. You could still try to DI to the left or the right since it wasn't a grab release or anything of that nature; you were essentially techchasing repeatedly, being rewarded for predicting your opponent's intentions correctly.

That's not really how they work on Brawl. A grab for D3 or Falco takes away all control from the opposition until they've had their way. For D3, this is until the stock is gone. Essentially, as Patsie put it, it changes the game temporarily to one-player. There's NOTHING I can do if he doesn't screw up. I can't even try to stop him once he gets that grab, which should be pretty easy because of his ridiculous grab range, wtf projectiles, and brawl's heavily defensive play.

This is mainly how I see it. It can be beaten tho...so w/e.

 

[Hive]

lol at these arguments (though there are a lot of smart cg legit arguments out there):
"just learn to counterpick stages better"- k, so DDD wins the starter and you counterpick... possibly win...
but then its DDDs turn to counterpick- someplace with walkoffs or walls essentially turning his normal cg into a stock
"just don't get grabbed"- of course you want to limit how much you get cg'd in a match... but seriously.... you aren't going to be able to avoid them all... At high lvl play do you really think that somehow characters who can get infinited will be able to avoid D3's grab threat? look at any of their matchup charts... <.< besides in a defensive close combat situation (bound to happen) what are your options for avoiding grabs? spot dodge or move away? this effectively limiting your shield? The cger can learn to take advantage of your limited dodge choices bc your actions will become very predictable in this situation... or if you spot dodge... then he can just time the cg differently... theoretically yea, grabs are "fully avoidable" but then again so are smash attacks... they are still bound to happen every match...
"his infinite only effects 5 people"- so what? then any kind of cg rule limitation would only effect those 5 ppl.... so any kind of action wouldn't even really effect DDD's metagame then...
"they aren't that cheap bc they can be broken out of..." no, they can't. hence "chaingrab" ^^
"they aren't cheap because most end quickly at the stage end"- 60% damage later... and it forces a recovery... this can be an instant stock for any good DDD who can edgehog/spike well against ppl with bad recoveries <.< infinites and cgs against a wall or walkoff don't give this opportunity though (delfino, corneria, green hill...) but the point is even if they end quickly the damage stacked is still fairly high...
"if you think chaingrabbing is so cheap you should just drop brawl" <.< lol you assume I'm completely traumatized about it or that I can't attempt to adapt both of which aren't true at all... i just think cgs are cheap in a technical sense is all and i think its worth ppl debating over... i don't ***** every time i see one or something ^^ @.@
"'CGs are cheap' is a scrub argument" attempting to argue a point by simply pronouncing it "scrub" is both circular and ill informed. circular meaning you are calling it scrub by supporting it by already assuming it is.
same goes with "Using CGs is scrub"
"CGs are just like any other combo"- differences- most accepted combos can be at least plausibly escaped from, cgs are far less situational, usually do much more damage and force you into a recovery and or forces a stock situation, require the use or repeatedly tapping the same button combinations and only need 1 consistent timing (cept ICs), and are far more character specific and end up skewing matchups much more ^^ probably the closest thing you could compare it to is maybe a jab lock... but even that is not the same...

 

[HeroMystic]

"just don't get grabbed"- of course you want to limit how much you get cg'd in a match... but seriously.... you aren't going to be able to avoid them all lol... get real. At high lvl play do you really think that somehow characters who can get infinited will be able to avoid D3's grab threat? look at any of their matchup charts... <.<

It has happened.

 

[Nibbles 2]

I believe it is cheap, just because it's inescapable. However, they do take skill to pull of successfully and are a legitimate move, so I don't think they should be banned or forbidden.

 

[chic]

if mk, snake, or even gw could be infinite grabbed by it then people would want to ban it

 

[mc4]

lol people say don't get grabbed as if is possible to not get grabbed once a whole match, can you imagine how much camping you would have to do to not get grabbed, and then people would call you out on camping because you don't wanna get chain grabbed. It's pretty much a lose lose, playing an tough arial game works but you have to touch the ground at some point, spacing doesn't always work because lag or no lag a quick character after you've retreated your arial can still close the gap quickly and grab you once you touch the ground "don't get grabbed" nonsense it's gunna happen especially if the person is a good player. Chain grabbing is only cheap when its the majority of what a person does, which is usually the case (D3's, falcos) There are chars that will never be able to beat them because of chain grabbing, ex-try playing a fox or wolf against a chain grabbing falco you'll never win (chain grab across a stage to dair is all it takes and di doesn't always get you far enough away from falco to avoid the dair) hell yeah it gets cheap whether its part of the game or not. Are we to conclude that spamming isn't cheap because it's part of the game? How many people wanna ban meta knight all meta knight users are doing is using his moves? What's so cheap about that? Get outa here!

 

[Matador]

Don't get grabbed? Impossible!

It has happened.

 

[MarkPP]

it's not cheap when ice climbers do it =P...cause with Ice climbers it takes skill...go try it. it's harder then it looks...

If it takes skill it doesn't always mean it can't be cheap.

 

[Tien2500]

Someone theoretically *can* go a match without getting chaingrabbed but this is a case of an exceedingly large skill advantage.

Lets say we had a hockey game. For whatever the reason the game only goes to three goals. And one team had to play without a goalie. If the team without a goalie is amazing, manages to keep the puck in the opponents zone the whole game, while scoring three goals (or scoring one and waiting for time to expire), and doesn't slip up and lose possession of the puck once then yes the team without the goalie can win. But expecting a team of even the best hockey players in the world to not lose possession of the puck three times is incredibly unreasonable.

 

[Hive]

It has happened.

of course, the possibility of it happening isn't what's being argued ^^
it isn't nearly reliable enough to count on though...

 

[Nintendevil]

counterpick

[/topic]

 

[Matador]

of course, the possibility of it happening isn't what's being argued ^^
it isn't nearly reliable enough to count on though...

Doesn't matter, that's why it's not smart to use Samus vs D3. The fact of the matter is that if you ARE so bold and decide to try the matchup in a tournament setting, it's not an auto-loss or anything like that. You can win, so there's no reason to ban it or limit it. It's a beatable tactic.

 

[Tien2500]

Doesn't matter, that's why it's not smart to use Samus vs D3. The fact of the matter is that if you ARE so bold and decide to try the matchup in a tournament setting, it's not an auto-loss or anything like that. You can win, so there's no reason to ban it or limit it. It's a beatable tactic.

So what happens if you choose to use Samus in the first match of a set? You have no idea whether or not your opponent is going to pick Dedede. So if they do you're screwed. You didn't decide to try the matchup. You just got screwed. So you can't go with your main in the first match. Now if you won a match with your main you have to switch to another character because if you don't you can get Dedede'd. So you can't use your main except as a counterpick. Which means for all practical purposes you can't main any of those characters. Whether or not this is a reason to ban the tactic is a judgement call but its not simply a matter of choose another character for that one matchup.

 

[HeroMystic]

It's our choice to main characters who can get infinite'd and take them to tournaments, and we hold that burden on our shoulders and we have to deal with it.

That was Matador's point.

 

[XienZo]

But why can't it? What is so precious about the infinite that even though it's plainly acknowledged as broken and unfair it cannot be banned until it reaches an arbitrary number of characters affected? "It only affects four characters" is really not a good enough reason for it to remain unbanned.

Oh, that number isn't arbitrary at all. The number would be... all the characters that can are not disadvantaged against the infinite-er who are also not utterly unviable for other reasons. If there is ONE (viable) character that has a decent matchup, you second him and it'll be fair again.

 

[Hyper_Ridley]

I think another we have to consider is that if we were to ban it, how would we enforce the ban? Say the rule is, "D3 cannot grab more than 2 times in a row". Okay, so now D3 grabs twice, releases...and then he hits his opponent with another move that allows him to get a new grab.

So now you say, "OK, D3 must let his opponent move again after the release". But what if, even after that, Mario's still getting grabbed a lot? Is the Mario just bad, or is D3 still broken? This is why its imposible to reasonably ban the grab infinites, it becomes too subjective between tourney judges what consitutes as abusing the grab or not.

 

[XxBlackxX]

But why can't it? What is so precious about the infinite that even though it's plainly acknowledged as broken and unfair it cannot be banned until it reaches an arbitrary number of characters affected? "It only affects four characters" is really not a good enough reason for it to remain unbanned.

ok...this is a pointless argument...
you keep saying that just because you main one of the characters affected it should be banned. and yet you admit that you wouldnt want it banned if you were playing the D3. this is kinda stupid to me. so youre saying you want to win, but you still want to main mario. now, now offense to mario mains, but if you want to win you gotta know that he has serveral bad matchups, D3 being one of the worst of course, that you need to have seconds for. now, what is wrong with using them against D3? ok, so its not that simple, you cant start off as mario, and cant use him if they are CPing, so if you main, mario, you have to deal with the fact that your characters has weakness and that you have to cover them!

 

[snowaxe]

I find it fine, half of the time you can get out of it easily.

 

[Tien2500]

I find it fine, half of the time you can get out of it easily.

No you can not break out of it. Unless Dedede messes up. You have no control over it. O_o... Thats why it is a chaingrab.

As for how to set up the rules how about this...

Dedede may not perform a standing chaingrab. He is free to perform his running chaingrabs to the end of a stage.

See? Not so hard. If they were to ban it.