Tether grabs and why they need to die

[Supermodel From Paris]

I hate tether grabs.

Before I start, I should say that yes, I know you don't agree, and that yes, I know you love tether grabs. Unfortunately, you're wrong. They are a game balance cancer, existing only to either doom characters to mediocrity or worse, or in their best-case scenario, make them way too strong (see: Olimar). There can't be a happy medium because the very premise of a long-range grab box is overpowered as hell. A character with a slow tether grab has no real way around defensive play, and a character with Olimar's grab becomes Olimar, and everyone hates Olimar.

The problem ultimately with tether grabs is that a grab is too important a tool in Smash (where there's no such thing as overheads, sweeps, or low-hitting attacks, only shield poking which is important but not nearly as profound as the anti-block mechanics in fighters) to give it any profound weaknesses, and that the overpowered strength of having a grab 12 squirtles in length doesn't make up for the profound weaknesses tether grabs need to balance then. Most tether grabbers will simply lose out and not be good characters, and the ones that win will be bad for the game.

The flavor offered by tether grabs is not worth the problems they have always caused for the characters employing them. Please consider getting rid of them (maybe not zairs, I dunno) and finding another solution for players that want to keep them for flavor reasons.

 

[Oracle]

 

[Mithost]

I wish it was standinggrab=normalgrab and dashgrab = tethergrab, but I don't see exactly where you are headed with this.

"Tether grabs are really good except when they are really bad, and there is 0% absolutely no way to strike a balance between the two sides" is what I read. If this is what you meant to say, how can you prove that there is no way to strike the balance? Don't bring up an argument like "it hasn't worked before so it never will", please.

 

[Astraea31]

Link and ZSS are doomed for failure!!!1

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

I wish it was standinggrab=normalgrab and dashgrab = tethergrab, but I don't see exactly where you are headed with this.

"Tether grabs are really good except when they are really bad, and there is 0% absolutely no way to strike a balance between the two sides" is what I read. If this is what you meant to say, how can you prove that there is no way to strike the balance? Don't bring up an argument like "it hasn't worked before so it never will", please.

There's not really a way to "prove" that a balance can't be struck, but I don't believe it can be without additional gimmicks. It's an issue of risk vs. reward. If your grab has the range of say, ZSS' tether grab in Project M, there needs to be some kind of balancing factor. This has traditionally come in the forum of high lag or start-up time.

I used to argue that they could easily fix the problem by making the grab box that spawns next to the character in question come out on a "normal" frame like 6-8 (this is average in Brawl, don't know about Melee), and keeping all of the other weaknesses but that's still way too good.

If you've got a good solution I'd be happy to hear one, but I made this thread because I can't think of anything that won't be dramatically imbalanced in one way or another.

Link and ZSS are doomed for failure!!!1

I haven't kept up, but last I checked, ZSS isn't considered to be spectacular. It's been said that her match-ups vs spacies and a few other top tiers aren't so hot because of how they abuse her lack of close-range options.

 

[Arcalyth]

Uh... all of the tether grabs have really high endlag

 

[hotdogturtle]

If you ask me, Ivysaur's tether grab needs to have longer range.

 

[NameChange]

might as well remove wavedashing why dont you

 

[Oracle]

Lucas' tether grab is pretty amazing but its still no olimar. don't see why just putting lots of endlag on the move isn't a valid solution

 

[Vashimus]

Hell, ranged grabs in Brawl and P:M are shorter than they were in Melee (which I'm pretty sad about). Just because more characters have them that aren't complete garbage doesn't mean it's a "game-balancing cancer." As far as Olimar is concerned, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

 

[9bit_alt]

A tether grab has to be judged along side the whole character. I think Samus' tether grab was very well balanced in Melee when you account for her whole moveset.

Also, this shows (especially in the third match) some good tether grabbing. Both successes and whiffs.

 

[Vashimus]

<3 Knut

#believe

 

[Raccoon Chuck]

Three Words: Deal With It
(Insert Pixel Sunglasses Here)

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Lucas' tether grab is pretty amazing but its still no olimar. don't see why just putting lots of endlag on the move isn't a valid solution

It isn't valid because it makes holding R too good against the character WITH a tether grab.

 

[Oracle]

If you hold shield against my lucas and expect a get out of jail free card im probably taking that stock. If theres more endlag how exactly is holding r safer? That just means I get to grab you since youve pretty much killed your movement options, same as with most other characters. Having 15 or so more frames of endlag off of a whiffed grab is only giving the opponent a marginally better punish off of a whiff, and usually vs tether chars you have to read the grab to get a real punish.

I do agree that most tether characters have horrible grabs, but your idea that there is no middle ground between samus and olimar is really strange and I dont agree

 

[Strong Badam]

shielding in general is bad at high level in most situations. this doesn't change much against tether characters.


but tethers are dumb

 

[Phaiyte]

But why is op so mad tho

 

[Kink-Link5]

Oracle talks by far the most **** out of any smash player I've seen.

We coo though.

 

[Oracle]

every time I open my mouth people get offended also sigged

shielding in general is bad at high level in most situations. this doesn't change much against tether characters.


but tethers are dumb

I wouldn't say shielding is bad but shielding in neutral is pretty awful and that gets lower level players in trouble a lot

 

[Strong Badam]

yeah, i meant in neutral.

 

[himemiya]

I hate up-b tethers and think they should be replace with an better one (or atleast be able to airdodge to up-b and with zzs side-b). Yeah tethering can be dumb at times.

 

[_R@bid_]

He means tether grabs, not recoveries.

 

[himemiya]

They're still tethers.

 

[MonkUnit]

entirely different things, though. one is for recovery and the other is for grabbing.

 

[cparks1000000]

Problem: Tether grabs are too good.
Solution: Roll and sidestep more.

 

[_R@bid_]

Problem: Tether grabs are too good.
Solution: Roll and sidestep more.

I'm not a very good player, but rolling is ,99% of the time, a bad thing to do.

 

[Stunts]

How to take care of tether recoveries:
1.Pick Sonic
2.Run off stage
3.UpB back on stage
4.Taunt

 

[Strong Badam]

5. Have no friends because you picked Sonic

 

[Burnsy]

How to take care of tether recoveries:
1.Pick Sonic
2.Run off stage
3.UpB back on stage
4.Taunt

This is only guaranteed against characters with Up-B tether recoveries. Characters with Zair tethers have options in this situation

 

[Jolteon]

I'm not a very good player, but rolling is ,99% of the time, a bad thing to do.

They're effective against tether grabs since they have slower start-up than regular grabs do.

 

[Ace55]

I'm not a very good player, but rolling is ,99% of the time, a bad thing to do.

Uhm no, for some characters rolling is pretty important as an OoS option, Ganon for example.

 

[_R@bid_]

Oh sorry then. But wouldn't wavedashing work just as well, or better?

 

[Translucent]

Ganon's wavedash does not go very far and is kind of slow. So in a lot of situations for him rolling is faster and will put him further away than if he were to wavedash OoS.

 

[_R@bid_]

Ganon's wavedash does not go very far and is kind of slow. So in a lot of situations for him rolling is faster and will put him further away than if he were to wavedash OoS.

That's good to know, though I was actually talking about rolling from tether grabs.

 

[Wrestlemania]

Some character have better grabs than others, saying that a mechanic that has been around since the original game should be taken out is a little ridiculous.(In response to the OP)

 

[Jolteon]

Oh sorry then. But wouldn't wavedashing work just as well, or better?

Depends how far you are from them. Spot dodging works fine anyway, except vs Lucas whose active grab hitbox lasts for a while.

 

[mudkyp]

ok but like my panini grill just broke, can you come help me out because you are so PRESSED

 

[ph00tbag]

Most tether characters tend to engage from a further distance away. Take away the long ranged grab and now they have to close the gap. Some travel time that can be reacted to later, they're in grab range. But hey, now that they're close, they don't have any better option from that range than to grab. Time to roll, if you've been paying attention.

This is why it's better for characters that engage from midrange to just go for shield stabs anyway.

 

[EpixAura]

I hate tether grabs.

Before I start, I should say that yes, I know you don't agree, and that yes, I know you love tether grabs. Unfortunately, you're wrong.

I think I would know whether or not I agree or love tether grabs. If that line was meant as a joke, it's actually pretty funny though.

There are a few good points here, as I have to agree, grabs are incredibly important in Smash, and replacing a standard grab with something that either makes it way better or way worse is a pretty bad idea, but I really don't agree with you saying they can't be balanced to be less polarized. Lucas and Ivysaur's are pretty decent (although I would probably give Ivysaur's a slight buff. The ranges just feels... weird) without over-centralizing their options or being borderline useless.

 

[_R@bid_]

Ivy's definitely needs a range buff- it's super low to the ground, so much so you can't grab on slopes iirc.
But yeah, Lucas has a pretty decent one without overcentralizing him.