What is a Wobbling ban?

[Juggleguy]

As a TO, I've always defined wobbling as any continuous ICs chaingrab that does not involve throwing. If the ICs player holds and combos the opponent in a series of moves that creates a "hit stun lock," then that counts as wobbling and he/she is DQ'd. If the ICs player does the dthrow dair chaingrab, then that is a legitimate tactic that can be escaped from and is not grounds for a DQ.

 

[ChivalRuse]

I like Rob's idea of doing three headbutt/tilt iterations (since there's still a pretty large mashout-escape to inescapeable ratio) in between chain grabs just to spite the anti-wobbling crowd.

 

[Wobbles]

Juggleguy: The lock in a successful infinite is established with the very first headbutt. Everything after that is technically exploiting that stun-lock.

Reneblade: I'm just curious why you happily accept the status quo argument as valid given that it was never valid or used to begin with. Originally burden of proof was on the pro-banners, who claimed it was gay and whined enough and got their way without ever providing said proof. Now burden of proof is magically on us somehow, but no matter what proof we DO offer regarding how it does and does not effect results and the metagame, pro-ban continues to use majority rule and "gayness" as its primary arguments and the ban remains in place.

And this isn't really about me *per se* but I've been in situations where people try to get *me* specifically DQ'ed on technicalities. If you've ever been in a room with a hundred people booing you as you use legal means to win, and you've ever had somebody in the crowd shout for you to get DQ'ed in the middle of a match while you played within the rules, then you'd have significantly less faith in people's "integrity." You know I've never even tried to DQ somebody for pausing during a match and ****ing up my infinites, but in multiple cases people have attempted to DQ me for playing by the rules? Forgive me for not sharing your blind optimism regarding the "competitive integrity" of a community that bans unbroken techniques for being gay and will accept cheating when it happens against someone who isn't the favorite.

There's no standard set for any of this. People will say a strat is gay depending on which player does it, will say something is amazing or ********, only changing if the person responsible is a Falcon or a Jigglypuff. When it comes to what they say is legit and not legit, fair and not fair, skilled and unskilled, this community flip flops more than a hamburger at a barbecue on National Epilepsy Day.

 

[Roneblaster]

Im about to start driving for an hour, so i didnr read all that, but i will.

Rob i've never commented of the reasoning behind the current status quo. I dont know why it is, i dont think anyone does, thats not my point though. Your're saying we need to find out why its banned(correct me if im wrong) and im saying it doesnt matter because if you convince me that im wrong, it doesnt matter what or why the status quo is.

I think wobbling should be banned. It is banned. You guys want change, so hop to it.

 

[Cactuar]

No no, I think he has a point. Lets just ban ICs and be done with it, as trying to enforce wobbling bans is just unreasonably difficult.

Also, I don't understand "flip flops more than a hamburger at a barbecue on National Epilepsy Day." If someone had an epileptic fit, wouldn't the hamburger end up staying on one side while the individual is incapacitated by their epilepsy?

 

[Stevo]

For some reason I feel like 2 headbutts/tilts seems fair.

In my head the 2nd head butt shows "ok, I hit you inbtween the headbutts, you are (potentially) in a lock.
the 3rd hit is a pattern, and could then be "Wobbling"

imo that seems like the fair amount.

I am not convinced Wobbling should be banned at all, though.

 

[Roneblaster]

Sarcasam or not, cactuar agrees with me, therefore i win.

 

[Stevo]

that logic is sound

 

[Nintendude]

Status quo argument is invalid here, by the way. If you want, we can do a time warp and pretend we are years ago when it WASN'T banned, when all the arguments were identical, and we could flip it to say "give us proof it's banworthy because status quo etc."

This got me trying to remember the exact history of the legality of the infinite back when it was introduced to the tournament scene. I could be wrong, but I think the first national tournament to ban it was 0C3. If not 0C3 it was another national tournament in California. Anyways... I remember asking why it was banned and the response I got was something to the effect of "I don't want people flying in from all over the country just to lose to wobbling." So, it wasn't actually banned on the grounds of being broken - it was banned to make the tournament more enjoyable for the OoS people who put forth the effort and money to come to the event.

I'm pretty sure MLG didn't ever ban it. Or if they did, they quickly unbanned it since I remember Chu using it in some of the final SSBM MLG events. Who actually remembers the first large events to ban it on the basis of being unfair and broken?

 

[Lovage]

Alright, cool.

Opponent is at 15% (roughly the percentage that Wobbling starts working at).

1. Grab
2. Blizzard (13%)
3. Utilt (11%)

Opponent is at 39%.

1. Dthrow (6%)
2. SH Dair (9%) - They can escape here if they see it coming, know what they are doing, are fast enough and aren't read by the IC player. Can be mixed up with reverse dair or utilt > re-grab.
3. Grab

Opponent is at 54%.

4. Blizzard (12%)
5. Fully-charged Fsmash (19%)

Opponent is either at 85% and off-stage, dead, or escaped from the grab (letting you re-grab for even more damage and a guaranteed kill, pretty much).

What exactly is the point of a Wobbling ban again?

i think u've lost touch with the game a little bit

there's a really really really big difference in using a dthrow dair and wobbling

 

[Wobbles]

Cactuar: the hamburger is epileptic

Reneblade: but... despite all the given proof on our end and none on the other side, I find myself unable to convince anybody.

Just... look at some damn tournament results. Chu wins a major tournament with it legal, but during the finals against M2K he agreed NOT to use it. Using it, with it legal, he took 8th at a major tournament after a string of 3rd and 2nd places elsewhere.

I brought the controversy to TX by beating Caveman 3-0 with it, but then beat him in two consecutive sets at a tournament with it banned. At POE3 I beat Zhu using it in the first set, then because we split and he asked really nicely I said "okay" and didn't use it in the second, and still beat him.

PEEF doesn't win Midwest tournaments when using it even though he's infamous for his extreme dedication and reliance on grab combos, while before him Trail was staunchly against it but remained a high-level player in the region. Fly didn't beat MacD with it legal and they're close in skill level. We have many instances of it NOT affecting high-level OR mid-level results even with it in play.

We also know that since the goal of the opponent in any given situation vs ICs is "kill Nana and don't get grabbed" it doesn't effect the matchup other than limit your margin of error somewhat.

Our best tool for determining something's brokenness--empirical data--demonstrates it's NOT a dominant strategy and it barely elevates the ICs at all, except at levels of play where *any* abusive strategy can net you easy wins.

 

[Cactuar]

Wobbles: Ah yes! But of course! It all makes sense now...

 

[Roneblaster]

i understand your point rob. but when it comes down to it, its of secondary importance.

this is a totally subjective argument. you saying its not ban worthy. THATS YOUR OPINION. there is no set definition for ban-worthy.

 

[Cactuar]

Of course there is a set definition for ban-worthy.

It's called "I don't like it, so I'm gonna ban it."

 

[Roneblaster]

thats just not true, because if that was the case, falcon marth and luigi would be the only legal characters.

 

[Cactuar]

Just wait. Fox only. No items. Final Destination.

2014

 

[Roneblaster]

i've been practicing fox tech skill, so by 2014 my fox might be ready.

 

[adumbrodeus]

I'd play that.

 

[john!]

the hamburger is epileptic

now it's official. best thread ever.

 

[The King]

Oh, look... it's this thread again...

Still trying to slap a definition onto Wobbling without having to use 100 different exceptions and move-sequence chains to capture everything that the technique is capable of. But for what, to ban an infinite that already has multiple prerequisites to meet in order to execute?

This move has STILL yet to negatively affect or degenerate the metagame, even after it's introduction nearly half a decade ago. All it did was provide an extra, slightly more effective chain-grabbing tool to some already wonderfully-skilled IC players.


Even when talk of banning this technique first sprang up, it wasn't based on factual evidence concerning the technique deserving its fate... it was a community-wide political witch hunt in its purest form. People overreacted simply to the end-spectrum of this technique's potential (omg anyone can pick up IC's and just wobble for 4 stock and win a national). The technique also struck a chord deep in the community's heart concerning "the spirit of the game"... "Hey! This isn't MvC2, we're supposed to be able to fight back in this game!" While it wasn't a very fun way to lose... well, losing is never fun regardless of how it happens; all wobbling did was make the opponent sit there and take it, one pummel after another.

IMO, the only reason this technique caught the flak it received was because Wobbles used his own technique waaaaay too overzealously during his break-out period. He didn't give the community a chance to see that he could win on the Big Stage without wobbling, hence people overreacting to his success and basing it off of the technique alone.




...Personally, I don't believe it should be banned at all, and never should have been banned in the first place. But just to play devil's advocate:

Has anyone ever considered that maybe those that *do* ban wobbling have been unsuccessful because of their approach in banning just that technique? What I mean is, imagine that instead of them banning wobbling, they ban *ALL* IC "chaingrabs" which leave the opponent incapacitated for more than, say, 15 seconds? (15 may not be precise, but bear with me.). If even the most complex *non-infinite* grab combos from IC only last about 15 seconds before the opponent has to be released / can escape / has reached a killing percentage, why not just limit every grab combo in their arsenal to a time constraint rather than a # of hits incurred?

 

[Wobbles]

Reneblade: Awesome!

"Give me proof it should be unbanned and I'll be convinced."

"Here is proof."

"Banworthiness is subjective so it doesn't count."

 

[Brightside6382]

i understand your point rob. but when it comes down to it, its of secondary importance.

this is a totally subjective argument. you saying its not ban worthy. THATS YOUR OPINION. there is no set definition for ban-worthy.

To think that this type of thinking has become accepted in the smash community in general. The banning wobbling argument in general always devolved into "I don't like it".

 

[Grim Tuesday]

snip

Read the very first paragraph of the opening post.

 

[john!]

saying that the burden of proof is on anti-ban is ridiculous. the default position is that this game should be played as-is without restrictions. it's up to the pro-ban side to provide reasons why it should be banned.

 

[Redact]

My reason against wobbling is the fact it removes the participation of the second player once it has begun.

One of the largest reasons I enjoy smash is the fact that the combos are dynamic and based on so many large factors, one being DI/teching done by the person on the receiving end of a combo.

Wobbling esstinally removes this in comparison to alternate CG's that IC's have. When you get faced with dthrow dair chains, or blizzard regrab chains, you can DI or SDI out if done correctly, and the opponent can read this too so on so forth, which creates a deeper level of grab game.

Wobbling is not a story of p1 vs p2, its a story of p1 vs their own execution. Once you get grabbed above 15% (and nana isnt dead/far away), you have literally only one choice: mush lots and hope your opponent stuffs up. I don't understand how this makes a game deeper in the slightest. Sure you can not get grabbed in the first place, but no character has something anywhere near this devistating they can pull off in a run of the mill situation (IC's have quite a few factors favouring them to get grabs outside of their grab range)

Things are banned from a game not only because they are broken, but can be banned if they deter from the competitive aspect of the game itself, or simply make the game an absolute chore to play (see: Sandman in tf2)

Smash gives you a chance to make it back when you get hit or grabbed normally. When anyone grabs you, you can DI or mush out of it. When you get shined you can DI or tech it. When you get f-smashed you can DI so you dont die. With all of these situations, unless youre already in a bad spot off the stage or an incredibly high%, you still have the ability to come back.

Wobbling can be %15-%150 with simple execution, no reading required, and removes all chance for the opponents DI to even matter. Whilst yes i understand that getting a grab with nana available readily isnt something that will happen 24/7, but I cannot see any other move/whatever in this game that is so simple to execute, completely removes the opponents chance to influence the game, and can be landed anywhere near as easily as a grab with nana available.



This is not a factor of it is impossible to deal with, It is very possible to play safe and not get grabbed, but that does not change the idea that wobbling is a negative upon the competitive aspect of the game and its mechanics

 

[The King]

I read the entire first post, btw. The first line in my post is not a reflection on the kind of discussion you were trying to spark, but rather a reflection on this entire thread and how topics such as these always inevitably digress into such. To create a topic such as this, where your goal is to discuss *how* to regulate such a ridiculously-controversial ban such as the one on Wobbling by select TO's, while at the same time believing that some members of the community won't inevitably chime in to state their opinion that the technique doesn't deserve to be banned at all, is incredibly naive.

I mean seriously, how could you not expect that a tangent discussion such as whether Wobbling deserves regulation at all would infest your thread? It is even admitted (or at least propositioned) in the opening post that Wobbling, with all its subtle variations in the technique's execution, is too difficult or nigh-impossible to fairly & effectively regulate to the standard which many would like to see it (namely, that Wobbling never happens, period.) And after such a proposition, it is further propositioned *by you* that the technique hardly requires restriction to keep the metagame balanced anyways.

Your post practically begs the community to stand up and prod at the fact that Wobbling doesn't deserved to be banned from a balance or metagame point of view. The reason TO's sometimes advocate its banning nowadays is to preserve "the spirit of the game", in that Wobbling has such a terrible stigma around it these days that it can quickly cause any observing crowd of the technique to spiral into hateful & "passionate" responses towards it.

 

[Wobbles]

Redact: You get shine-spiked; you technically have controller over your character even when recovery is outside the realm of possibility. You get d-aired at 20 percent by a Falco out of your double jump, and even though you can up+b, he still has a free guaranteed edgehog situation. Now the only thing he can do to allow you to survive is screw up the simple task of grabbing the edge and hitting R.

Comparable? Well an IC grab can happen anywhere but that has to take place near the edge of the level. Then again, ICs are beneath all those characters above them for a reason; they can get shut out hard and prevented from grabbing for an entire game. So yeah, rarity-wise I'd say it's comparable.

Character control is meaningless in itself if you don't have an actual shot at survival. Once you've let an IC grab you under those specific conditions, your stock is gone.... unless of course they screw up or have the timing slightly off. Which happens surprisingly frequently; I really challenge anybody who claims it's easy to consistently pull off when the opponent knows the matchup to actually go out and do it. Unsurprisingly, nobody ever does. Hell, money match ME and if you can land two infinites on my Mario in a whole 2/3 set then I'll agree with you.

Permitting the circumstances that lead to an infinite and the number of serious mistakes you have to make to allow that to occur is, in my opinion, the equivalent of jumping into a tipper or a d-air off the level. After a point in almost any matchup, the only thing that allows you to survive are opponent mistakes. This does not detract from the legitimacy of the technique, only increases it's power. With so many limitations on the technique in the first place, it is not nearly as "run of the mill" as you claim.

 

[Zone]

Stuff

I feel bad for the ice climber players. I am anti-ban, so i'm probably biased. But I never see any concrete facts to show why it's bad and i see all the ice climbers pouring their hearts out to prove it's an ok tactic, only to get theorysmash in their face, or to tell them their proofs are opinions. tournament results are pieces of evidence that wobbling does not affect the game as much as you think. Sure it's boring to watch, but no one said you had to watch it. Sure it feels lame when it's done to you, So why don't you gentlement agree to suicide yourself if they get you in a wobble. you know why? cuz you always hold that glimmer of hope they will mess up. the same reason you up+B when falco down airs your double jump. you just hope that falco will try to drop down and do something fancy or mess up so you can make it back.

IMO, smash community seems to value flashy/cool over fair. Just like they don't care if wobbling is banned(cuz it increases their chance of winning slightly and they don't have to watch so called "Boring" matches.)

I remember them making a thread or two about banning jiggs, just cuz hungrybox and Mango were ******. and it made their poor precious little grandfinals boring. boo hoo. you have plenty of matches to look forward to in bracket, no need to be unfair to 2 underplayed characters. IC a lot more underplayed than jiggs but that's not the point.

EDIT: just saying if there were fox ditto grandfinals everytime (for a short time period), I don't think there would be a thread about banning fox.

I know this is not the purpose of the thread. but I had to type out my feelings :\

 

[TheGoat]

As much as I do really loathe the ice climbers, it hasn't been demonstrated that wobbling makes ice climbers broken. To the advocates of anti-ban: Host your own tournament, or convince someone to host one where wobbling isn't banned, and see how it turns out.

 

[MTKO]

I feel bad for the ice climber players. I am anti-ban, so i'm probably biased. But I never see any concrete facts to show why it's bad and i see all the ice climbers pouring their hearts out to prove it's an ok tactic, only to get theorysmash in their face, or to tell them their proofs are opinions. tournament results are pieces of evidence that wobbling does not affect the game as much as you think. Sure it's boring to watch, but no one said you had to watch it. Sure it feels lame when it's done to you, So why don't you gentlement agree to suicide yourself if they get you in a wobble. you know why? cuz you always hold that glimmer of hope they will mess up. the same reason you up+B when falco down airs your double jump. you just hope that falco will try to drop down and do something fancy or mess up so you can make it back.

IMO, smash community seems to value flashy/cool over fair. Just like they don't care if wobbling is banned(cuz it increases their chance of winning slightly and they don't have to watch so called "Boring" matches.)

I remember them making a thread or two about banning jiggs, just cuz hungrybox and Mango were ******. and it made their poor precious little grandfinals boring. boo hoo. you have plenty of matches to look forward to in bracket, no need to be unfair to 2 underplayed characters. IC a lot more underplayed than jiggs but that's not the point.

EDIT: just saying if there were fox ditto grandfinals everytime (for a short time period), I don't think there would be a thread about banning fox.

I know this is not the purpose of the thread. but I had to type out my feelings :\

Agreed, I bet if Axe starts beating everyone with his pikachu, then people are going to be crying about that too, like when they were crying about jiggs (even though pika is in a different realm than jigs, just giving an example). I agree that it seems like many of the players that aren't "top" players definitely like the more flashy play style because that's what they see their favorite players doing. I like the keep the entertainment in the game while keeping it as competitive as it possibly can be. So for me personally, I don't mind wobbling at all, as long as it's stall because while stalling is a way to win a round, it takes away the entertainment and a lot of the skill used in the game in many cases. I find wobbling much different, while though several seconds of wobbling may not be entertaining, there is still a certain level of skill involved in setting it up and executing it that is much different than that in stalling techniques. So as long as people aren't using wobbling to stall the match, I'm absolutely fine with it.

 

[Redact]

Redact: You get shine-spiked; you technically have controller over your character even when recovery is outside the realm of possibility. You get d-aired at 20 percent by a Falco out of your double jump, and even though you can up+b, he still has a free guaranteed edgehog situation. Now the only thing he can do to allow you to survive is screw up the simple task of grabbing the edge and hitting R.

Comparable? Well an IC grab can happen anywhere but that has to take place near the edge of the level. Then again, ICs are beneath all those characters above them for a reason; they can get shut out hard and prevented from grabbing for an entire game. So yeah, rarity-wise I'd say it's comparable.

Character control is meaningless in itself if you don't have an actual shot at survival. Once you've let an IC grab you under those specific conditions, your stock is gone.... unless of course they screw up or have the timing slightly off. Which happens surprisingly frequently; I really challenge anybody who claims it's easy to consistently pull off when the opponent knows the matchup to actually go out and do it. Unsurprisingly, nobody ever does. Hell, money match ME and if you can land two infinites on my Mario in a whole 2/3 set then I'll agree with you..

I'd be happy to MM you if I was even in your country, but unfortunately I'm stuck in AUS.

As for the ease to pull off, I am not talking about the ease it is to get that grab when nana is there (whilst I believe that is easy too) but how easy it actually is to wobble once you get that grab.

This is another thing that stems from opinion on execution and personal standards.

Permitting the circumstances that lead to an infinite and the number of serious mistakes you have to make to allow that to occur is, in my opinion, the equivalent of jumping into a tipper or a d-air off the level. After a point in almost any matchup, the only thing that allows you to survive are opponent mistakes. This does not detract from the legitimacy of the technique, only increases it's power. With so many limitations on the technique in the first place, it is not nearly as "run of the mill" as you claim.

Again, I simply disagree with that and It is a difference of opinions yet again. I don't believe wobbling is the same as that in regards to how much smaller of a mistake can lead to a wobble in comparison to the mistakes you listed (and yet again be much more effective at a low % on ANY character)

But really I simply came here to state my opinion, not to debate, so If you do try to reason against myself, I can't garuntee I will reply unless I feel like it.

I ban wobbling in my own tournaments and I feel the ban is justified due to not only the logic I use behind the ban, but my own local community also supporting the ban.

 

[adumbrodeus]

IMO, smash community seems to value flashy/cool over fair. Just like they don't care if wobbling is banned(cuz it increases their chance of winning slightly and they don't have to watch so called "Boring" matches.)

There it is honestly, when it's not flashy talk about health of the metagame, competative integroty, or protecting the community from harm are tossed out the window.

 

[Wobbles]

Redact:

Describing it as "a small mistake" reflects an error in your mental approach to the IC matchup. A sync'ed grab under appropriate conditions means:

--you failed to keep Nana separated from Popo
--having failed to do so, you then spaced horribly (given how poor the ICs grab range is) or used a tremendously laggy move at the wrong time, or something like that
--having been grabbed, assuming it was possible to do so you then didn't mash out

So that's a threefold error in your entire gameplay against ICs, and mistakes of that magnitude deserve to be punished pretty soundly.

So even if it IS a simple command having landed the conditions, who cares? If it was really hard but masterable, it would *still* be "the player versus his execution," a scenario that comes into play way more often in Melee than people like to believe.

Falcon gets a grab after a certain percent, he's guaranteed a KO on most characters. He just has to track DI and land his knee or whatever. Falcon versus his execution, because the opponent's DI really doesn't affect the outcome unless the Falcon assumes he knows where they will go and screws up. Does this violate any kind of competitive spirit of Melee? No, because if you get grabbed, you pay for it. If the other guy screws up you may get your second chance but it's really NOT that hard to d-throw knee. It's so powerful that there is typically no useful alternative, so it even removes strategic decision making from the Falcon player. Peach is at 80% or higher? Camp for d-throw knee. Marth is at 80%? Camp for d-throw knee.

The power isn't quite comparable, but many of the factors you complain about are present here, and you already said that the power of the technique isn't why wobbling should be banned anyhow, so we can safely say that's irrelevant in this comparison.

*

Also, if "situational" isn't the problem either and it's "lack of control," why isn't the ICs handoff banned as well? It's an inescapable CG that can be zero to death in a pretty good chunk of grab circumstances, and there are a pretty hefty # of setups that can lead to a handoff. Your DI doesn't matter, mashing doesn't matter, it's just the IC player versus his own execution. Why is this legal, but wobbling is not?

 

[Cactuar]

@Wobbles: Am I allowed to take that ICs vs Mario challenge? I don't even care about proving anything, it just sounds fun. lolol

Also, in response to your handoff vs wobbling statement: I still think we should just ban ICs and be done with it.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

I want to take that challenge too.

Come to Australia kthnx.

 

[VirtualVoid]

Well, when deciding whether or not to ban Wobbling you need to look at it from both aspects, and in both of them I fail to see the reasoning behind banning:

1. Wobbling is Broken - It simply isn't, you can't argue with tournament data, you can even look at matches from tournaments that banned Wobbling and count how many times an IC player could have wobbled, now let's say you find a match that you think that it would have mattered if the IC wobbled, if that IC player would have won, it's because the other player failed on the many aspects that allow a wobble, it's fine if he got punished for it.

2. Wobbling is Lame/Boring/Stalling - In terms of actual physical time it takes to wobble someone to death, it's not a lot more, if at all, from a normal stock, so this argument is baseless. About lame/boring, that's simply an opinion, one can think that marth chainthrowing space animals on FD is lame and boring, even if it takes more technical skill + involves reaction time. Also, most people simply follow the herd and call it lame just because they imagine themselves being angry if they lost to it even if it never happened.

All in all, it's just excuses, people are mostly afraid they will screw up against some random noob from nowhere and lose because he wobbled them for their mistakes.

 

[Timic83]

wobbling does not take as much skill as the more advanced ic cg's which are pretty much also infinites, if you want to do fancy wobling like stuff get better

ex ics player

 

[Cactuar]

I have always thought that IC mains greatly overestimate the difficulty of getting grabs.

 

[KirbyKaze]

One time I forgot Sliq gave me a candy bar and it melted in my pants and got caramel everywhere inside my pocket.

 

[ChivalRuse]

I have always thought that IC mains greatly overestimate the difficulty of getting grabs.

Not against you. Your Fox is as slippery as a fish ... one who has been trained as an escape artist.