Chain Grab - Your perspective/opinion

[homer2020]

CG's don't require anymore skill than say GaW getting at least 80% damage on you and hitting you with one of his smashes for a kill. All I really had to do was outwit my opponent and hit him (which in brawl basically require you to press A + Direction of opponent until you're reached enough damage to press the C stick in the direction of your opponent) Yeah Brawl in general requires little skill, however this is relative, and depend on what you think skill truly is. Which sorry in general compared to other things in life video games don't require much skill, again relative, to someone like my parents video games are hard.

IC's CG does require some sort of skill (timing), not impossible to master but not very easy either. If one does master their CG and can 0-death with it well then good for you. Now a good player will not spend their entire time grabbing because that's too predictable. If you do end up getting grabbed to death well then too bad you lost a stock, you shouldn't have gotten grabbed. Easier said than done? Well maybe that depends. I can go an entire match against my friend who is somewhat better than me and not get grabbed if that's what my goal is, stay out of range, don't use laggy attacks etc... If I get grabbed it's entirely my fault and I accept that, my stock disappears and I move on and think how did I get grabbed so I don't do it again. Not ban worthy, not that hard to not get grabbed with patience and spacing, focus on kill nana or getting her away from popo.

Falco's chaingrab isn't really too much to worry about it's not infinite it can lead to death only if you be stupid about it, other than that it's no guaranteed stock, doesn't do a whole lot of damage, definitely not ban worthy.

The standing infinites are quite easy to do, doesn't take much "skill" to do. The sentence "It doesn't take any skill" makes me laugh. So what what is skill pressing a button less then an inch away from another button to form a combo is now more skill? sorry but when it comes to pressing different buttons taking more skill it doesn't seem like much more skillful than anything else. This infinite does make 7 characters unplayable in certain matchups, but it really shouldn't be ban worth just because of that, it's only one matchup and only 7 characters, obviously not all characters are going to be tournament viable, you would be fooling yourself if you thought Brawl would be that balanced. The programmers must have not seen this and now we pay the price, they have "chosen" who can't be used in a tournament (except as a counter). If you think you can just pick a main this early in the game's life and hope everything will turn out fine, and now that something bad happens to them you want it banned, you shouldn't be playing competitively.

Before you say anything, yes, the standing infinite does affect me. One of my mains is Luigi, and I've accepted that I shouldn't make him my best as he has a flaw. Does that man that I'm never going to play as Luigi? of course not. I can still use him, just not against D3. Know your character's weakness and live with it, if you can't cope with it don't use them.

Sorry for any grammar mistakes, I'm too tired to care about the grammar right now, it should be fine but I'm not guaranteeing anything.

 

[metalmonstar]

If you have read Sirlin's articles and you don't agree with chaingrabbing then please do not bring up anything he has said. In his article about srubs he used repeated grabs as his example. A scrub calls this cheap and thinks skill is doing combos or executing really difficult moves. Then you have his article about what warrants a ban and to me chaingrabbing doesn't justify a ban.

First of all I think people are looking at Skill wrong. A lot of people here seem to think of skill as in technical skill, being able to preform a certain AT or being able to do a combo. People state that chaingrabbing takes no skill. I must admit that some of the chaingrabs are not difficult to pull off, but they still take skill. I have probably lost all of you.

Suppose I said if chain grabbing took no skill then why don't you do it. Then you took my advice and won a tournament then came back to me thinking you now had an argument. You said, "See it takes no skill." Thus I would reply that it does take skill. You have to get in a position where you can preform a grab. You have to know how to do it. You have to know how to utilize it. Sometimes it is not easy to play to win, and you have to do cheap things because others will. It is not like chaingrabbing is the instant win button. At best it only takes away one stock, you still have to get 2 more.

If infinites and chaingrabs aren't cheap then why do we ban stages with walls? This is another argument I see a lot throughout. The reason walled stages are banned is because Dededee becomes pretty much the only viable character for those levels. It is like the rest of the cast doesn't stand a chance. We can easily ban stages. Making one character the only viable character does warrant a ban.

Some of the infinites make perfectly good characters unusuable.

First I want evidence of this. Ness, Lucas, and DK have not dropped off the tournament map because of these infinites. All it did was give them one or two bad matchups. DK is actually moving up the Tournament Ranking list. Even if it did make these characters unviable, it wouldn't warrant a ban. You can have a competitive game with only a handful of viable characters. More tournament worthy characters does not mean better or more balanced at all. It just means more characters.

Besides DDD can't do his infinite grab to everybody. Just choose a different character when facing DDD. There are quite a bit of characters who can't be CGed by him. Marth can't grab lock everyone, just choose a different character. That is why you have secondaries.

Just because you can chaingrab doesn't mean you will win. If someone plays Marth just to beat your Ness, there is still a good chance you can win. If you are a good ness and they don't play Marth or their a noob looking for an easy win then a good Ness player still has a chance. In fact I think a good Ness has a chance against even a good Marth player. You just have to be careful of getting grabbed.

That is how you play smash you do whatever it takes to keep from taking damage or stocks and you do whatever it takes to do damage and take your opponents stocks.

 

[Dantarion]

I think the real discussion on CG's is "Should characters be able to win by exploiting game mechanics if it means that the other person has no chance if said technique is done right"

I think the answer is yes, simply because we can't really ban it. Well, I supposes we could say "No Infinates over XX%" or something, but that wouldn't work, because people would complain about someone grabbing them and getting them from 0->XX% without them doing anything other than getting grabbed

 

[Dantarion]

Just because you can chaingrab doesn't mean you will win. If someone plays Marth just to beat your Ness, there is still a good chance you can win. If you are a good ness and they don't play Marth or their a noob looking for an easy win then a good Ness player still has a chance. In fact I think a good Ness has a chance against even a good Marth player. You just have to be careful of getting grabbed.

That is how you play smash you do whatever it takes to keep from taking damage or stocks and you do whatever it takes to do damage and take your opponents stocks.

The problem with this, is theoretically, a good IC player actually could grab ANYONE and cause a lost stock. Of course, like you have said, chaingrab dominance has yet to happen, but I do agree that people are looking at characters succeptible to Infinates and moving them down on the tier list (Ness,Lucas) reguardless of if people are even using that technique in tournaments to win.

 

[Koga]

again i must say; The fact that D3's Standing infinite makes 7 characters unplayble is not ban worthy. There is most likely more than 7 unplayble characters even if we banned the standing infinates. all you're accomplishing by banning them is requiring judges to pay attention and making dedede players upset and forcing them to change their playstyle cause some people whine.


Banning the grabs wont add more depth, wont balance the game anymore, wont accomplish anything. it'll just make running a tournament more difficult.

 

[Amarkov]

If you have read Sirlin's articles and you don't agree with chaingrabbing then please do not bring up anything he has said. In his article about srubs he used repeated grabs as his example. A scrub calls this cheap and thinks skill is doing combos or executing really difficult moves. Then you have his article about what warrants a ban and to me chaingrabbing doesn't justify a ban.

If I play Marth against your Ness, the entire game becomes about me chaingrabbing you. No matter what you do, the best strategy is to chaingrab you. It doesn't really even matter how much damage I take while trying to get a grab in, as it's essentially a free stock if I do.

First of all I think people are looking at Skill wrong. A lot of people here seem to think of skill as in technical skill, being able to preform a certain AT or being able to do a combo. People state that chaingrabbing takes no skill. I must admit that some of the chaingrabs are not difficult to pull off, but they still take skill. I have probably lost all of you.

Suppose I said if chain grabbing took no skill then why don't you do it. Then you took my advice and won a tournament then came back to me thinking you now had an argument. You said, "See it takes no skill." Thus I would reply that it does take skill. You have to get in a position where you can preform a grab. You have to know how to do it. You have to know how to utilize it. Sometimes it is not easy to play to win, and you have to do cheap things because others will. It is not like chaingrabbing is the instant win button. At best it only takes away one stock, you still have to get 2 more.

That would be true if there were substantial risk involved in chaingrabbing, but there isn't. If I have to tank a few of your attacks to grab you, what does it matter? I'll still be up a stock when I finish.

If infinites and chaingrabs aren't cheap then why do we ban stages with walls? This is another argument I see a lot throughout. The reason walled stages are banned is because Dededee becomes pretty much the only viable character for those levels. It is like the rest of the cast doesn't stand a chance. We can easily ban stages. Making one character the only viable character does warrant a ban.

Some of the infinites make perfectly good characters unusuable.

First I want evidence of this. Ness, Lucas, and DK have not dropped off the tournament map because of these infinites. All it did was give them one or two bad matchups. DK is actually moving up the Tournament Ranking list. Even if it did make these characters unviable, it wouldn't warrant a ban. You can have a competitive game with only a handful of viable characters. More tournament worthy characters does not mean better or more balanced at all. It just means more characters.

Part of the problem is that they aren't suddenly unviable. You can still play Lucas and do well, unless you happen to fight a Marth. When you fight that Marth, unless they are significantly worse than you or don't know the chaingrab, you will lose. It's not that it's a hard matchup; you have no chance.

Besides DDD can't do his infinite grab to everybody. Just choose a different character when facing DDD. There are quite a bit of characters who can't be CGed by him. Marth can't grab lock everyone, just choose a different character. That is why you have secondaries.

Counterpicking should be an issue of advantages and disadvantages. It should not be "you picked the wrong character, so you AUTOMATICALLY LOSE".

Just because you can chaingrab doesn't mean you will win. If someone plays Marth just to beat your Ness, there is still a good chance you can win. If you are a good ness and they don't play Marth or their a noob looking for an easy win then a good Ness player still has a chance. In fact I think a good Ness has a chance against even a good Marth player. You just have to be careful of getting grabbed.

You can't just "be careful of getting grabbed". You will be grabbed eventually. You may win against someone much worse than you, but that proves nothing.

That is how you play smash you do whatever it takes to keep from taking damage or stocks and you do whatever it takes to do damage and take your opponents stocks.

Of coufse; that's how you play all competitive games. It doesn't necessarily mean that no rules should be imposed to make the game better.

 

[Miamisportsfan45]

I support chain grabbing and all, but only to an extent. Chain Grabbing someone to 100% or higher... there's no reason or purpose for this.

 

[dj_pwn1423]

wow people keep missing the point...

snake > chain grabs

This means snake is actually "cheaper" than chain grabs. Do you hear any talk about baning him? No. Even though it counters almost the entire cast.

Dedede is countered by how many characters again?

number of times snake has won a CA tourney: almost all of them sadly.
number of times dedede has won a CA tourney: 0 (maybe more but w/e)
number of times the ICs have won anything: less than 0.

I think we can all agree that chain grabbing is not game breaking.

why should we ban then?

 

[Eji1700]

*sigh* Listen, chaingrabbing in this game is merely something characters can do. Its not a cheap tactic or unfair or "dishonorable" in any way. Lets say that I play Snake, and I come up against a ROB. ROB can destroy Snake with his laser and gyro. So if you are a ROB players, would you not use the laser and gyro against Snake just because Snake has a hard time dealing with it? And if I were playing Snake, I would have to change my playstyle around to deal with it. I'll have to crawl more, or approach with my powershield. Sure, its difficult to deal with, but I chose a character that is vulnerable to this, so I have to learn how to play against it. The same thing applies to chain grabbing.

I'm surprised nobody has linked this yet, but you seriously need to read this. Its possibly the most over-linked article in the internet, but its a great read for people with mental blocks like yours. Here: http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/intermediates-guide/introducing-the-scrub/

I'm glad you brought that up. Its a great read on competitive gaming and is especially good for those of us who like the strange realm of fighting games. However if I may:
http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/intermediates-guide/what-should-be-banned
From the same article later on, the whole thing is worth a read but heres the part that pertains to at least d3 and his infinite grab on DK and others:

That’s all well and good, but Japan has also shown signs of a soft-ban on another character in Super Turbo. I bring up this example because it lives on the threshold. It is just on the edge of what is reasonable to ban because it is “too good.” Anything less than this would not be reasonable, so perhaps others can use it as a benchmark to decide what is reasonable in their games.

The character in question is the mysteriously named “Old Sagat.” Old Sagat is not a secret character like Akuma (or at least he’s not as secret!). Old Sagat does not have any moves like Akuma’s air fireball that the game was not designed to handle. Old Sagat is arguably the best character in the game (Akuma, of course, doesn’t count), but even that is debated by top players! I think almost any expert player would rank him in the top three of all characters, but there isn’t even universal agreement that he is the best! Why, then, would any reasonable person even consider banning him? Surely, it must be a group of scrubs who simply don’t know how to beat him, and reflexively cry out for a ban.

But this is not the case. There seems to be a tacit agreement amongst top players in Japan—a soft ban—on playing Old Sagat. The reason is that many believe the game to have much more variety without Old Sagat. Even if he is only second best in the game by some measure, he flat out beats half the characters in the game with little effort. Half the cast can barely even fight him, let alone beat him. Other top characters in the game, good as they are, win by much more interaction and more “gameplay.” Almost every character has a chance against the other best characters in the game. The result of allowing Old Sagat in tournaments is that several other characters, such as Chun Li and Ken, become basically unviable.

If someone had made these claims in the game’s infancy, no sort of ban would be warranted. Further testing through tournaments would be warranted. But we now have ten years of testing. We don’t have all Old Sagat vs. Old Sagat matches in tournaments, but we do know which characters can’t beat him and as a result are very rarely played in America. We likewise can see that this same category of characters flourishes in Japan, where Old Sagats are rare and only played by the occasional violator of the soft ban. It seems that the added variety of viable characters might outweigh the lack of Old Sagat. Is this ban warranted then? To be honest, I am not totally convinced that it is, but it is just barely in the ballpark of reasonableness since there is a decade of data on which to base the claim.

I see a VERY similar situation with D3. He is currently not the best. There has not been enough time to know. Brawl is still in its infancy. It will be for quite some time. Stuff like the infinite jump trick is probably just the beginning. However allowing D3 in tournaments is basically saying that certain characters will NEVER be played unless a counter is found(and since we know the brawl engine this is slim). Some who are at least remotely viable will never ever see the light of day because it is not just a weakness you are admitting to, it is a flat out flaw. There is no way you can go for 3 stocks and NEVER get grabbed with DK if the players are of equal skill, and even if the DK player is the BETTER player he can still lose that matchup.

Also for those who read the whole article he mentions akuma before the section i quoted as a flat out ban. If the ice climbers walking throw turns out to be a stock for every grab on ANY character then i think that would apply. Granted you don't have to totally ban them. You can just technically limit those situational grabs but he does cover that as well. Either way i bring this up because i think that while thats an amazingly popular article I hate how that scrub section is always posted at the worst possible spots.

 

[Miller]

Honestly Im sick of these threads. Just because one day, you got wrecked by CGs doesn't mean you should cry and complain about it. If you hate it so much, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, Don't just sit over a computer screen crying all day and acting like a tough guy, because, we all know that internet is serious business

 

[Sliq]

The only CG I have a problem with is Dedede's and Marth's, and that's only because they are standing infinites that require little ability to set up and activate.

I'm not a fan of CG'ing in Brawl mostly because its auto-matic now. In Melee you at leat had to read DI, and react quickly. I was never chaingrabbed by noobs before, and now with Falco and Dedede it is common place,

I'm not saying it's ban worthy or you shouldn't do it in tournament, I'm just saying it's incredibly lame, and you aren't impressing anyone by doing it, and let's face it, most people go to tournaments to have fun, test themselves, and proove themselves, since a majority of people don't stand much of a chance winning money, and the money they will make is measley.

Do what you want to win, but don't be surprised when no one cares.

 

[kin3tic-c4jun-3]

Hmmm this is a difficult issue...

If I recall, in one of Sirlin's articles he was talking about a move in Street Fighter called roll-cancelling. It was a move that if done properly made you invulnerable. It was a glitch and when it was brought out at tournaments the game fell apart into a joke. However, this technique was almost non-detectable to viewers.

So, it was a glitch that required extreme skill to pull off properly, allowing the character to do many invulnerable moves, which the designers never intended.

A ban here was warranted, because when it was used in tournaments, the game was ruined. No one could counter it and it gave whoever was using roll-cancelling a garunteed win. It was an exploit. However, the ban could not be enforced because it was almost impossible to detect or prove that someone was actually doing it.

CGing...

I think the two things that we have to determine first, are seeing if a ban is warranted, and enforcable. Is banning CGing warranted? Does it give a garunteed win? Is it impossible to avoid?

And is the ban enforcable? What limits should be put on it? How many CGs would be allowable? Should it be banned all together? At certain stages?

Some of us need to quit squabbling over what takes skill or what doesn't, and realize that if we want to make any progress we have to DEAL with the situation. The real issue is how CGing affects tournaments.

I would really like to see more discussions about how CGing should be used in tournaments, so that a standard is eventually made. There might be one around here, but I haven't seen anything too formal...



Personally..... I think that if chain grabbing is impossible to avoid, there has to be a limit on it. Say, 5 CGs cosecutively, and NO CGing on flat stages with walk-offs. I've BEEN CG'd and I've gotten OUT of them, it's never been an absolute victory for whoever was using it - for me.

The only way I see it being bannable is if it results in a 'no-matter-what' win, always or most of the time.

It does NOT matter if it takes skill or not. It's a technique. If it's useful, use it. If it's an exploit, that's another story.

 

[metalmonstar]

If I play Marth against your Ness, the entire game becomes about me chaingrabbing you. No matter what you do, the best strategy is to chaingrab you. It doesn't really even matter how much damage I take while trying to get a grab in, as it's essentially a free stock if I do.

That doesn't really apply to what I quoted. Anyway though, If you choose Marth just to beat me when I playing Ness then I know exactly what you are trying to do and I just have to avoid you. I am willing to bet you will be obvious about it also. You could possibly miss several grabs. If your main goal is to just grab me then you become predictable and I should be able to avoid your obvious intents.

That would be true if there were substantial risk involved in chaingrabbing, but there isn't. If I have to tank a few of your attacks to grab you, what does it matter? I'll still be up a stock when I finish.

What if you have to tank a few stocks just to get that one grab. Sometimes you would be better off just fighting me while keeping the infinite in the back of your mind for when it happens.

Part of the problem is that they aren't suddenly unviable. You can still play Lucas and do well, unless you happen to fight a Marth. When you fight that Marth, unless they are significantly worse than you or don't know the chaingrab, you will lose. It's not that it's a hard matchup; you have no chance.

Counterpicking should be an issue of advantages and disadvantages. It should not be "you picked the wrong character, so you AUTOMATICALLY LOSE".

It is just a very hard match up. A lot of characters have very hard matchups. A lot of characters aren't very tournament worthy even without infinites against them. That is just what you have to deal with when you choose a character.

You can't just "be careful of getting grabbed". You will be grabbed eventually. You may win against someone much worse than you, but that proves nothing.

You can avoid be grabbed for a while and you can hope that is enough.

Of coufse; that's how you play all competitive games. It doesn't necessarily mean that no rules should be imposed to make the game better.

The rules are how the game was made. Rarely are Tournament organizers and players supposed to intervene with their own rules unless the situation warrants it.

There are characters who don't get banned. DDD, Marth, Ice Climbers, and Falco are not the only winners of tournaments. Which means chaingrabbing isn't as broken as we tyhink. Next how do you inforce a ban on chaingrabbing? Limit it to a number of times I can do a grab? Then I just do the max amount release and try to set it up again? To a percent? Well what percent do you choose? What if one CGer can kill at that percent while the rest can't? That isn't fair to the others? How about you limit them on the highest they can CG before they can kill? There is so much to deal with in even trying to limit the chaingrabs. It just easier to let it go on.

 

[TehBo49]

Marth chaingrabbing Ness & Lucas is just an example of a very disadvantageous matchup. Snake has a huge advantage over Captain Falcon. Does that mean we should ban his camping to so many grenades per stock? No. And we shouldn't ban chaingrabs either.

In the Marth vs Ness example, if you are the Ness player you must adapt & change your playstyle to avoid getting grabbed & punishing his attempts to grab you. If you cannot adapt to this situation, that shows a lack of skill on YOUR part.

 

[Dantarion]

I think perhaps the rules should be changed so that a ness player has the option of switching characters before facing a marth, since that counterpick is more of a "I win" pick.

But banning CG is going to be hard to do, especially when its commonplace now. It wasn't as common in melee, because it was much harder, and other than IC's, there weren't infinates(AFAIK).

The problem the competive community has now is actually similar to the one melee had.

Do we want to ban characters/moves/techniques because they work too well?

 

[S_B]

I think perhaps the rules should be changed so that a ness player has the option of switching characters before facing a marth, since that counterpick is more of a "I win" pick.

I like this idea, but the real issue is that I think it's too late and the damage is already done.

No one is going to bother maining one of the cursed 7 if all that practice can be shut down by their opponent picking Marth or D3. All that time spent practicing is better put toward a main who can't be infinited and any serious player knows it.

Even if I hosted a $10,000 tournament tomorrow with the "no chaingrabs allowed" rule in place, I'd still get mostly Snakes and Metaknights showing up to try their luck.

 

[Wyvernkni]

I see no problem with chaingrabbing in general. I do it all the time with Falco. Yes, I chaingrab. Yes, I'm a sinner who's going to hell (after you shoot me.) But I play buy the rules. I'm not big on tournaments, but if they ban certain moves, like chaingrabbing, so be it. I take no offense. Since I usually play for fun, if my opponent gets tired of falling to a chaingrab, I'll stop and switch characters. It's a move, and if nobody cares, I'm going to use it.

 

[linkw00t]

Jesus cry me a freaking river.

"MY MAIN DOESN'T HAVE A CHAIN GRAB!" *sob sob* *Makes stupid post*

Grow up man. Exploits and other unintentional things happen in fighting games, if you can't deal with it then run your own n00b tournament.

All this "Skill" obsessive ranting is really egotistical and childish. You do what it takes to win regardless of what you do.

 

[SnatchForFree]

I like this idea, but the real issue is that I think it's too late and the damage is already done.

No one is going to bother maining one of the cursed 7 if all that practice can be shut down by their opponent picking Marth or D3. All that time spent practicing is better put toward a main who can't be infinited and any serious player knows it.

Even if I hosted a $10,000 tournament tomorrow with the "no chaingrabs allowed" rule in place, I'd still get mostly Snakes and Metaknights showing up to try their luck.

If you hosted a $10,000 tournament with chaingrabs allowed, you would still mostly get snakes and meta knights.