Luigi Is Not Irrelevant: An Appeal To Stop Acting Like He is.

[omgliekkewl]

I prefer to lurk more than post on Smashboards but the Luigi forums are in desperate straits and a wakeup call seems in order. I hope this small but ridiculously talented community of dedicated Luigi players will not decline even further than it already has amongst the surge of less fluid, less powerful, less agile, less awkward-but-strangely-and-satisfyingly-fun and less awesome mid-tier characters than the gangly plumber. If there's one thing in common I find with almost every Melee forum and subforum, it's the general lack of Luigi presence and it doesn't sit well with me.

I started playing Melee my sophomore year at UC Berkeley in 2007 and was confounded by how good the people there were and how deep this game was. I first picked Luigi because he instantly won my heart with his breakdance moves, cat paws and overall silliness (without ever knowing what a wavedash was), but over time I've played and gotten competitive with almost half the cast. Now that my tech skill is firmly secured, my ability to space and time things is precise, my DI is consistent and my overall understanding of how the game works (counterpicks, stage selection, edge guarding, the elusive "mind-games", zoning, predicting, tech chasing, reading people, etc.) I still resort to my original pick: Luigi. Why? Because he's my best performing character by far and the only one that I give Berkeley players real trouble with. Because, in my humble but seasoned SSBM opinion, if Luigi is played properly, he's one of the best characters in the cast. Now, that's an extremely vague concept and while I hope to elaborate, what I really want is for this thread AND FORUM to revisit and re-discuss these issues!

***not exhaustive, I know there are many great players!***
Samus (HugS, IHaveSpaceBalls), Peach (Armada most recently), Puff (Mango, HungryBox), Icies (Wobbles, ChuDat), Ganon (Linguini, Kage), Pikachu (Axe, Anther), Dr. Mario (Shroomed, Bob$) and other unexpected non-high-tier characters have had great success playing their characters with thought and care, that is playing to their strengths and defending their weaknesses. And while our community has produced a fair share of outstanding Luigi mains, where have they all gone? Where are the up and coming new Luigis pioneering better character specific strategies and taking what TobiasXK, Azen, PimpUigi, Ka-Master, ppa0, Pakman, Vist, Blea Gelo and other great mains have done and improving on it.

If you think Ka-Master placing 17th at Pound 4 is the best any Luigi can hope to do, you're wrong. The SSBM community as a whole has somewhat mythologized Ka as the only one with enough skill to take on legitimate high tier contenders and that needs to change. Instead of saying "Oh great job Ka, way to get that far" why aren't we arguing about why Ka was rolling so much or why he had so many full jumps or what else he can do when he's getting stomped to death by Darkrain's violent onslaught. HOW ARE WE GOING TO TAKE LUIGI TO THE NEXT LEVEL?

A few broad ideas...

Don't be afraid to wait because with Luigi, you can afford to. If there's one thing I love doing more than anything else while playing Luigi, it's seeing my opponent squirm because I'm not moving or because I'm just walking around. Sometime I'll just walk to the other side of the stage in the middle of an exchange because I feel like taking a break and they don't know what the hell to do. Again, I'll wait for them to come to me. If they jump above me, I'll wavedash below them and get to the other side. If they come straight for me, I might jump way up high and rain down with D-Airs and B-Airs. Evasion is frustrating and being a great evader while still managing to deal your own damage leads to people making mistakes and when you're playing Luigi, mistakes ARE YOUR FRIEND. His wavedash makes his movement extremely dyanmic/explosive, so why not wait for someone to screw up (miss an L-cancel, miss an attack, whatever) and punish? Stop abusing the wavedash and use it when you need to. Watch Ka-Master play Silent Wolf or Zhu; he has a very simple, very effective strategy against tech-crazy Spacies and he works his best when flustering his opponent and methodically picking them apart.

Chip away if you have to. Don't go for Zero To Deaths unless you know your opponent can't DI. Luigi is more of a patient hunter, not a bumbling brawler. Short hop and throw out retreating aerials to pick away at your opponents shield without getting in range of their attack. Wear their shield down until they won't use it and will be forced to attack or run away, evade/chase them with a wavedash or two or dodge in place and punish. Punish and be patient. Luigi needs to wear down his opponents before he can make the kill and doing so with as little effort and damage as possible is ideal. Making quick escapes front potentially stock-ending situations allow Luigi to live for much longer than normal which means more time to chip away at your opponent (and further frustrate them). Which means that being able to WAVEDASH OUT OF SHIELD is extremely important. If the pressure's on or if it's coming too quick and you can't shield grab/attack/roll/jump, wavedash out of shield gives Luigi a great advantage over every other character because he moves SO FAR. Also, let the other person push you back out of their reach by keeping your shield on; Luigi's traction is so poor that after a strong attack on his shield, he's already slid out of range of attack. Come back to the action when YOU ARE READY and play the game at your pace. If you have to build up percentage with jabs and wave-tilts, so be it, because once you get a grab most characters auto combo into an aerial if you predict your opponent well enough.

YOU MUST RECOVER. I can always tell a good Luigi from a great Luigi by how long they live because it doesn't matter if you can pull off a wicked wavedash aerial combo if you're dying off the stage at 90% every stock. Luigi has one of the best off stage games if you know how to use his floatiness, aerials and great recovery well. Watch your opponent carefully to see what they want to do and ward off ledge guard attempts with aerials of your own. Because of his floatiness and quickness, you can get two aerials in one jump making your defense twice as likely. Know when to recover high and when to recover low. If your opponent has a spike of sorts (Marth, Ganon, Fox, Falco), go high by using the Tornado before you even get close to the stage to get extra height, which in turn gives you more maneuverability when trying to reach the stage. When you have opponents that can come off the stage and edge guard you, go lower than they would normally expect, use the Tornado if you have to, but be unpredictable. Jump away instead of toward the stage, Up-B when they aren't expecting it. Don't pop up from the edge EVERY SINGLE TIME with an aerial because the jig will be up in no time if your opponent is any good. Sometimes it's best to wait a few seconds and hang, make them make the first move and act accordingly. Go into Practice Mode and throw as many motion detecting bombs as it takes to get your teching perfect on each stage. There should be no reason why your Luigi isn't living to 130% or 140% instead of 80% or 90%.

Learn how to DI everything. Having good recovery DI (after absorbing a hit) is only one of many scenarios that you must be familiar with. Each character sets up combos differently and it's YOUR job to move Luigi in the right direction each time. The good news is, he's so floaty that most of the time your job is already done for you. But knowing how to avoid monster combos at low percentages is vital in keeping your Luigi competitive.

I seem to have gotten carried away but I hope this post facilitates at least some discussion in these forums. I'm definitely not claiming to be the authority on Luigi but if no one is going to shake the Smash community out of their complacency by winning a big tournament with Luigi, I might just have to try. I hope to post some good videos in the months to come to revitalize Luigi's Youtube presence.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Luigi played his best is not better than most of he characters above him played at their best.

He could be like the top of mid or better than Doc secretly or something but Falcon, ICs, Peach, Sheik, Puff, Fox, Falco, Marth have pretty much got the top 8 spots on lock.

This post isn't really anything new. I think your recovery section is hilariously optimistic and discredits the opponent's ability to respond to the numerous telegraphed, commitment-heavy strategies you're suggesting. Luigi's recovery is a flaw, sadly. It's true some people are bad at recovering with him, and you should get comfortable with all his options, but they're still easily covered by a savvy opponent.

On the other hand, I will give you credit for one point you made. You're right in that Luigi players have a huge tendency to lob out unnecessary moves and WDs without really appraising the situation effectively. Many cases, the correct move *is* to wait, but they devolve into tossing F-tilts or other zoning moves out instead. Waiting is incredibly important, especially for low tiers who lack the tools to potentially win in every situation (whereas top tiers and high tiers can respond directly to the vast majority of positions).

Chipping, combos, and that sort of thing is just situational crap and depends on your opponent, their character, and even the stage. So I'm not going to address it.

 

[omgliekkewl]

Your first point boils down to whether Luigi even has been played at his best and I contend he hasn't, so speculating any further isn't very helpful. I'm arguing for a paradigm shift in Luigi's metagame that leans toward more manipulation and baiting and not trying to use his agility as an end-all offensive strategy, much in the same was as Jigglypuff or Ganon does. Ka-Master has spot lighted why a Luigi played at his best is such a threat, not because of his tech skill but because of the mind applying it. If one person can take him to that level, are you really that certain that it can't be replicated or surpassed?

I agree that most of what I said is an amalgamation of 3 years of reading Smash strategy, watching videos intently (mostly non-Luigi videos) and playing and none of it is ground breaking in any way. But small tweaks to an arsenal and a different mindset while playing a match make a huge difference when they're unexpected and unpredictable.

And as for my optimism on Luigi's recovery, I'm not discrediting anything that my opponent can do. I've been stomped, kneed, spiked, b-aired, shined, missled, gimped, turniped, needled, u-aired and every other possible ledge guard you could think and I still love how many options I have with Luigi. You're thinking too much "Once he's in a bad position he's totally screwed" and not enough "If you play intelligently and DI correctly, he rarely gets in those positions and can recover fairly easily with what he has to work with." Predicting where Luigi should try to recover (high with well timed aerials, low with saved jump/charged Tornado, on stage with over B or Tornado/Jump/Air Dodge in quick succession, etc.) before he even gets hit and knowing what to do the moment you're off stage is what makes or breaks your chance of success. You're truly mistaken if you think a chargeable, variable distance horizontal recovery with a saved double jumped/Tornado/air dodge/huge vertical Up-B that stuns the entire way it's going up doesn't offer a multitude of viable and reusable recovery options, especially when the person edge guarding is just as easy to read as the person off the edge. Of course some things are telegraphed and require commitment, but trying to call Luigi's recovery a flaw when so many other mid and high-tier character recoveries are clearly more burdensome and limiting is not accurate. It's definitely more of an asset than hindrance.

 

[KirbyKaze]

He's vulnerable to all manner of projectiles and offstage aerials when he does his Side B. Charging it doesn't really work well because of how slow it is. And I'm pretty sure multiple smash Side Bs preserve more height and give more distance anyway. So there's really no point to mentioning that you can charge his side b because it's a fairly useless part of the recovery unless charging will enable you to land on the stage or something.

It is easy to hit him out of the Tornado. With either projectiles or with aerials.

The other thing you're omitting is that Luigi's lack of aerial mobility necessitates the use of Side Bs, even during some high recoveries. This is different from a lot of characters that can simply fall towards the stage during high recovery. He has to do more things to ensure he can get the horizontal distance he needs, which in turns means he leaves far more openings. He is also conveniently a floaty, so there's plenty of time to respond to him.

I also strongly disagree with your analysis of "reading the edgeguarder". If they simply pick a move where there isn't a counter, it doesn't really matter that Luigi "read" that move. And there are a plethora of things that Luigi doesn't have a counter for without predicting far in advance. So far, in fact, that the edgeguarder can simply respond to Luigi's obvious pre-emptive counter and switch strategies. This is a very big problem with his recovery. An easy example is how Sheik's Bair or Ganon's Uair works vs his high recoveries. His nature as a floaty also enables a lot of strategies to cover multiple options when they really shouldn't because he's still airborne for so long after attempting an air-dodge or whatever.

His Up+B is not very good at all. You can edgehog it very easily, and hit ledgehop aerials on it very easily, and drop --> Shine on it with Fox very easily. It requires him to be hugging the wall to work, too, so if he's hit away from the stage after Up+B he has to Side B and basically pray for a misfire or he's dead to the edgehog. It also only does 1% with almost no stun so there's no risk of trading with it if you go offstage. If he's hugging the wall, sometimes if you trade near the edge with some characters (Sheik, Peach, Marth, a few others) Luigi will get hogged despite hitting them with the Up+B because the Up+B will turn them towards the edge with no stun.

What's also bad is that onstage edgeguarding like Marth's D-tilt actually works to some degree because he doesn't have a method of instantly snapping to the edge like Fox/Falco.

Unless Luigi gets a misfire, he's easy to edgeguard. You just have to be good at using ledge invincibility so his Up+B won't hit you and so he'll be forced to Side+B or air-dodge because Up+B gets him automatically hit or edgehogged. And vs his high recoveries, just watch for his move and at a certain threshold, do your move if he hasn't done his because then yours will win no matter what he does.

 

[Van.]

I think Sheik players are the best at articulating why low tiers are hopeless. Probably because they spend all of their playing time inspiring that sense of hopelessness in low tier mains.

 

[Winston]

I agree with the OP that Luigi is way underdeveloped, and that Luigi players suck. I disagree that he can be developed to the point where he's a decent character, though.

The default Luigi philosophy right now seems to be "attack a bunch and hope Luigi's goofiness throws off the opponent enough so that you can get lucky and hit them sometimes", which can't be right. His main strength as a character is how he warps the standard zoning game due to his half the stage wavedash range, and if there is to be a major breakthrough with Luigi it will have to be some new way of using that. I'm convinced it won't be through improving his punishment game. It can be refined, but it won't be improved to the point of moving him up a tier.

So ultimately, I can't see Luigi moving past anyone except possibly mario/pika/doc.

a couple of nitpicky things:

He's vulnerable to all manner of projectiles and offstage aerials when he does his Side B. Charging it doesn't really work well because of how slow it is. And I'm pretty sure multiple smash Side Bs preserve more height and give more distance anyway. So there's really no point to mentioning that you can charge his side b because it's a fairly useless part of the recovery unless charging will enable you to land on the stage or something.

One reason you sometimes have to Charge as Luigi is if you just use uncharged smash side Bs all the time, some characters will be able to jump out and kill you, or chase your misfire and kill you if you misfired. (Captain Falcon in particular). You're still vulnerable with charge, but unlike most chars Falcon doesn't have an easy way hit and kill Luigi when he's low. He can, however, jump wayyy out there and knee Luigi on the uncharged side B lag. Fox can do this too but Fox's edgeguarding ***** Luigi no matter what. When Luigi is starting from a mid distance, it's a lot easier to aim Sheik's fair/Ganon's moves at the side B if it's uncharged. etc.

In general though you're right about charging.

What's also bad is that onstage edgeguarding like Marth's D-tilt actually works to some degree because he doesn't have a method of instantly snapping to the edge like Fox/Falco.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Luigi can sweetspot past stuff like dtilt/fsmash if you are accurate, just like Doc/Mario can.

Unless Luigi gets a misfire, he's easy to edgeguard. You just have to be good at using ledge invincibility so his Up+B won't hit you and so he'll be forced to Side+B or air-dodge because Up+B gets him automatically hit or edgehogged. And vs his high recoveries, just watch for his move and at a certain threshold, do your move if he hasn't done his because then yours will win no matter what he does.

This is mostly true, but the safest/most automatic edgeguards for some characters tend to let Luigi gain a lot of height and thus give him a lot of chances to misfire.

That being said I feel that most of the good characters have pretty much guaranteed edgeguarding on Luigi, though it seems like nobody abuses it to the full extent in practice. ICs and Peach might be bad at edgeguarding Luigi, I'm not sure.

Long story short, recovery tactics are not what will move Luigi up as a character, if he ever does.

 

[KirbyKaze]

He can sweetspot Marth's D-tilt?

Oh, cool.

You learn something new every day.

Because of the height sacrificed I find that Luigi's charge Side B often opens him up for all manner of ledgehop aerial shenanigans, gets him projectiled down by Falco/Sheik, and sometimes you can just jump in front of him offstage and take the charged Side B if you know it won't KO you (sometimes it will kill him because he's used so much height charging it that jump + his remaining stuff won't be enough because of his bad aerial mobility). His Side B's low priority also allows a lot of sex kicks and move that stay out for a while to still work against it, even without completely perfect timing.

And even if you can't go off immediately like that, I find his charge usually makes him have to recover below the stage, which is easy enough to edgeguard with basic ledgehop aerial stuff.

 

[omgliekkewl]

Trying to make an exhaustive list of Luigi's recovery flaws without giving an equally critical examination of the GLARING weaknesses in other character recoveries is a flimsy means to criticize him. Character potential can only be valued in comparison to other characters. If I spent half the time you have explaining the consequences of laggy moves, poor decisions and poor innovation skills, I'd make an equally compelling argument as to the horrendously flawed recoveries of Falcon, Falco, Fox, Doc, Marth, Ganon and others.

The bottom line is that recovery is a secondary skillset that is never foolproof and staying ON THE STAGE with momentum is ideal. When you're off the stage, you'll always run the risk of getting gimped or edge guarded. Recovery can only minimize those chances. In all the situations you've mentioned I can think of much better, more effective ways of getting back to the stage without delving into any of the annoyances or threatening positions...I seldom try to recover high against a Sheik or Ganon and I RARELY ever try to recover low against a Fox or Falco (which avoids shines, ledge dropped aerials and spikes altogether). Up-B is a situational move that is more a surprise than anything else; it's main advantage is how quick it can come out which often throws a player off (they might airdodge instead of tech or screw up an aerial by getting turned around), not its edge-grabbing ability. And your argument about Marth's D-tilt and any other tilt move that will catch him on the way up is simply avoided by A. Teching or B. Sweet-spotting (he has a pretty liberal sweet spot).

As for reading the read or reading the reading of the read, yeah it gets convoluted and is more difficult for a person off stage but your case that the person on stage has to make simple readjustments and "watch for his move he hasn't done his because then yours will win no matter what he does" is oversimplifying matters greatly.

 

[KirbyKaze]

The bottom line is that recovery is a secondary skillset that is never foolproof and staying ON THE STAGE with momentum is ideal. When you're off the stage, you'll always run the risk of getting gimped or edge guarded. Recovery can only minimize those chances. In all the situations you've mentioned I can think of much better, more effective ways of getting back to the stage without delving into any of the annoyances or threatening positions...I seldom try to recover high against a Sheik or Ganon and I RARELY ever try to recover low against a Fox or Falco (which avoids shines, ledge dropped aerials and spikes altogether).

Sheik can shoot you down very easily for low recoveries. And she's fine vs them anyway because of how good her ledgehop aerials are. So I don't see how recovering low helps you in that one, but sure.

Ganon is also better vs low recoveries in this one because he can drop off with backwards Uair and it will kill Luigi when he gets close to the stage and if he's done it right it won't trade with anything because of ledge invincibility. He also has a very good ledgestall to facilitate this.

Falco can jump out and spike you for committing to anything even if you are recovering high. And can shoot you with a billion lasers to kill your momentum and force you to commit at some point.

Fox sure whatever. But Fox covers high recoveries fine with his Bair anyway. It's not very hard to jump off and kick Luigi.

Up-B is a situational move that is more a surprise than anything else; it's main advantage is how quick it can come out which often throws a player off (they might airdodge instead of tech or screw up an aerial by getting turned around), not its edge-grabbing ability. And your argument about Marth's D-tilt and any other tilt move that will catch him on the way up is simply avoided by A. Teching or B. Sweet-spotting (he has a pretty liberal sweet spot).

Some of these traits' usefulness depend not only on surprise but also on the opponent having no idea what a Luigi is or how he works. Like the tech thing. It also largely depends on them being bad at using ledge invincibility because you're assuming you're hitting them with it.

I wasn't aware he could sweetspot on Marth's D-tilt. I'm always on the edge vs his low recovery so I didn't know. I simply assumed it worked. Oh well.

As for reading the read or reading the reading of the read, yeah it gets convoluted and is more difficult for a person off stage but your case that the person on stage has to make simple readjustments and "watch for his move he hasn't done his because then yours will win no matter what he does" is oversimplifying matters greatly.

Not really lol.

 

[Wenbobular]

I feel like on stage edgeguarding sucks vs recoveries that can sweetspot from below by going the correct distance. I've tricked many a Marth into countering / Fsmashing on stage while I Firefox from below. On stages like FD it's fairly easy to sweetspot right past (you can even trigger counter / burn their hand while not being hit yourself). With Luigi you don't even have to bother finding the right angle, just make sure you're at the right height and you sweetspot past it fairly easily I think (either that or I suck at timing Dtilts because I was testing this with Gustav_wind 10 seconds ago)

About charging - if you don't charge, Falcon will just jump out and knee you as you float awkwardly in side-b lag. Also you most certainly don't want to recover high vs Falco because he can then just easily ledgehop spike your side-b ... recovering low is a better option in my opinion because Falco has to drop quite low to hit you with a ledgehop spike if you're recovering low, which puts him in danger of getting poked to his doom if he messes up at all.

Fastfallers having the option to high ledgehop against most of Luigi's recovery options kinda blows for his recovery though. Floaties have a bit more trouble, but they're also floaty enough to go out there and swat him away during side-b lag.

Fox and Falco actually have much better recoveries than some people give them credit for. They have multiple options at just about any point when they're off stage ... covering a shortened illusion while remaining free to edgeguard the full length illusion and Firefoxes is hard times for a lot of characters.

Doc, Marth, Ganon, Falcon have similarly exploitable recoveries in my opinion (even though I can't edgeguard Doc to save my life -_-)

As for offensive / defensive stats...

His long wavedash is something other characters need to respect, but his reliance on wavedashing to move is also something that can be abused. Putting moves where Luigi will be is pretty effective because he can't stop himself in the middle of the wavedash like characters with good dashdances can.

His combo game is fairly reliant on his opponent not knowing how to DI Luigi's weird moves. Once you learn how to DI against Luigi (toward his back when he's grounded, away from him when he's in the air unless it's a finisher) then he doesn't have many punishing DI mixups. DIing toward his back on Upthrow gets the fastfallers out of guaranteed stuff and requires you to make reads for harder punishments.

On to defense ...

His one saving grace for getting out of combos is that he has a super quick interrupting Nair, but that only really works on people who aren't used to spacing / baiting it. Luigi probably doesn't get true comboed very easily, but getting out of pseudo combos is a nightmare; once Luigi is in the air almost everyone has something to abuse his super floatiness.

Umm...

Yeah dunno what else to say.

Man this post is pretty jumbled -.- haha

*Edit*
I'm kinda surprised that the first post in like a week in this forum is this huge essay haha

 

[Winston]

Trying to make an exhaustive list of Luigi's recovery flaws without giving an equally critical examination of the GLARING weaknesses in other character recoveries is a flimsy means to criticize him. Character potential can only be valued in comparison to other characters. If I spent half the time you have explaining the consequences of laggy moves, poor decisions and poor innovation skills, I'd make an equally compelling argument as to the horrendously flawed recoveries of Falcon, Falco, Fox, Doc, Marth, Ganon and others.

The bottom line is that recovery is a secondary skillset that is never foolproof and staying ON THE STAGE with momentum is ideal. When you're off the stage, you'll always run the risk of getting gimped or edge guarded. Recovery can only minimize those chances. .

Well, the point isn't that Luigi is bad because of his recovery. His recovery isn't like Ness' or something. The point is that even if you optimize his recovery it's not good enough to move him up the list/make him a good character.

We're arguing a bunch about his recovery because its one of the more concrete things you cited that could improve Luigi.

As I see it, these are Luigi's main problems that don't have an easy solution:

1). his inability to techchase fully on reaction. Obviously he has the ground speed to be able to cover the options, but for some reason it seems that right now nobody can do it because wavedashing on reaction is harder than just dashing or something. I don't know that it's not possible, just that nobody can do it right now (IC and Mewtwo players can't either). if Luigi could then I would change my mind about his potential.

2). his best moves don't hit people who are jumping and attacking. Dsmash, upward angled ftilt, jab, utilt, and usmash will lose to the good characters' aerials. His biggest strength, his wavedash, is also a weakness. There's a zone outside of the range of his immediate aerial/smashes, but inside the range of his wavedash lag, where characters can short hop aerials and not really get hit by anything.

Combined with use of platforms, this lets Fox, Falcon, Falco, and Sheik stay really safe while still maintaining offensive threats.

for Luigi to punish an aerial, he has to either predict it and retreat, or space an aerial of his own. The first option gives up stage if you predict incorrectly, and the second gives up his mobility temporarily if you don't hit. Luigi still can land hits but the mixup games aren't in his favor.

3). His combo/punishment game isn't good enough to make up for his difficulty in landing hits. A big part of this is point number 1. In most situations his comboing moves can be DIed so that fastfallers get to tech, or non fastfallers get to jump out. Luigi operates on higher risk than the other characters in the sense that he has to make reads to start combos, but without higher reward. His punishment game is significantly worse than Marth/Sheik/Fox/Falco/Falcon's, and somewhat worse even than Doc/Pika's.

4). His edgeguarding on Fox/Falco is not that good. A big part of this is that his combo finish moves aren't strong enough to send them offstage far enough to put them in an unfavorable recovery situation. His strongest combo finisher that you can actually land on a good opponent is dair, and that will send them in a trajectory that lets them recover high. When a space animal is recovering high, he can threaten to illusion to a platform and edge cancel. Luigi has to preemptively jump to cover this option. If he does so, the space animal can illusion to the edge and Luigi can't cover it. Add shortening the illusion to the equation, an option Luigi can only cover by guessing that they'll do it, and you have a situation where you must get a read to KO them, and the odds are not in your favor. This is very different from their edgeguarding on you, which they can do methodically and without guessing.

Fox can also start his up b high and angle to the edge, which is really safe vs anything except an edgehog or an ftilt at the very edge, which require Luigi to guess.

His range is also not good enough to base his gameplan on keeping opponents out,

5). points 1-4 mean that Luigi isn't going to be able to keep up with the good characters on the basis of his offense, provided that they play correctly against him. Luigi's defensive game is not nearly as good as Samus', and his range is not as good as Ganon or Marth's, so he can't base his gameplan off defense either.

 

[omgliekkewl]

His long wavedash is something other characters need to respect, but his reliance on wavedashing to move is also something that can be abused. Putting moves where Luigi will be is pretty effective because he can't stop himself in the middle of the wavedash like characters with good dashdances can.

His combo game is fairly reliant on his opponent not knowing how to DI Luigi's weird moves. Once you learn how to DI against Luigi (toward his back when he's grounded, away from him when he's in the air unless it's a finisher) then he doesn't have many punishing DI mixups. DIing toward his back on Upthrow gets the fastfallers out of guaranteed stuff and requires you to make reads for harder punishments.

On to defense ...

His one saving grace for getting out of combos is that he has a super quick interrupting Nair, but that only really works on people who aren't used to spacing / baiting it. Luigi probably doesn't get true comboed very easily, but getting out of pseudo combos is a nightmare; once Luigi is in the air almost everyone has something to abuse his super floatiness.

I think what you're saying supports my initial argument that Luigi players need to be more mindful, patient, evasive and know how to space/DI properly and not overextend themselves when it's too much of a risk. I guess the word is restraint. A Luigi with restraint isn't hyper-aggressive and shouldn't be a combo machine. Playing small ball will win the game if you get hits when the time counts. There is no auto mode with Luigi and each stock requires a player to be ever-vigilant; that means not wavedashing back and forth mindlessly after taking an opponent's stock and not realizing your opponent is just waiting to punish your predictable wavedash show (for instance).

 

[Winston]

Yeah, playing like a bad version of Samus might be a better style.

That still makes him a bad version of Samus, though.

 

[Wenbobular]

I think other characters are better at playing "small ball" than Luigi is ... <_<
Namely like ... Samus

I don't think his defensive game is good enough to be able to "small ball" your way to victory like Samus can. He doesn't have the up-b out of shield or Samus's CC / tilt poke game and Samus gets out of combos much easier

 

[omgliekkewl]

1). his inability to techchase fully on reaction. Obviously he has the ground speed to be able to cover the options, but for some reason it seems that right now nobody can do it because wavedashing on reaction is harder than just dashing or something. I don't know that it's not possible, just that nobody can do it right now (IC and Mewtwo players can't either). if Luigi could then I would change my mind about his potential.

Techchasing with Luigi's wavedash is a matter of practice. You can't stand close and hold shield like a lot of characters (because of his awful traction) and you can't dash dance around waiting for something to happen so you have to wavedash back and forth in quick, short bursts and when you see how they're getting up (rolling, stand up, get up attack, whatever), wavedash accordingly. If it's a get up attack, wavedash in semi-close, short hop, wait for the attack to finish and fast fall an aerial. It's also fairly effective to jab, overshoot your wavedash and downsmash, flicking them up on the final swing of Luigi's legs, out of harms way.

2). his best moves don't hit people who are jumping and attacking. Dsmash, upward angled ftilt, jab, utilt, and usmash will lose to the good characters' aerials. His biggest strength, his wavedash, is also a weakness. There's a zone outside of the range of his immediate aerial/smashes, but inside the range of his wavedash lag, where characters can short hop aerials and not really get hit by anything.

Combined with use of platforms, this lets Fox, Falcon, Falco, and Sheik stay really safe while still maintaining offensive threats.

for Luigi to punish an aerial, he has to either predict it and retreat, or space an aerial of his own. The first option gives up stage if you predict incorrectly, and the second gives up his mobility temporarily if you don't hit. Luigi still can land hits but the mixup games aren't in his favor.

To fight people who are jumping and attacking, I tend to jump higher and attack with higher priority moves or simply wavedash away until they decide they're ready to approach me differently. Also, fastfalling through the air while using Down-B is an great deterrent against opponents in mid-jump preparing to do an aerial attack. And to your point that you only have two options when punishing an aerial, predicting it and attacking with a well timed, short-hopped U-Air, F-Air, or retreating B-Air (not to mention u-tilt and N-air) is also an option. You don't have to retreat upon your prediction and in most cases, Luigi is fast enough to punish with pure reaction.

And yes, I'm arguing AGAINST mixing it up and FOR a more patient game.

3). His combo/punishment game isn't good enough to make up for his difficulty in landing hits. A big part of this is point number 1. In most situations his comboing moves can be DIed so that fastfallers get to tech, or non fastfallers get to jump out. Luigi operates on higher risk than the other characters in the sense that he has to make reads to start combos, but without higher reward. His punishment game is significantly worse than Marth/Sheik/Fox/Falco/Falcon's, and somewhat worse even than Doc/Pika's.

Disagree. He only operates on risk because you're playing him with a risky strategy; stop making unnecessary risks trying to out-compete better characters by using THEIR strategies which are obviously ineffective. Getting your opponent off the stage, the primary objective of this game, is not a very hard task for Luigi (a back throw, a few well placed forward tilts, forward throws close to the edge, d-air above 50%, b-air above 70%, f-air above 60%...) and he can edgeguard from there so who cares if he can punish as well as Marth or Sheik or Falcon. His floatiness, recovery and b-air allow him to fall to almost any height for an easy gimp and attempt more aggressive edgeguards than most characters (or Luigi mains, even) are willing or able to do. Furthermore, when an opponent is recovering high, Luigi's high jump mixed with his floatiness (sometimes with the help of platforms) allow you to throw out four solid aerials to create space and manipulate where your opponent lands (works with high recoveries like Falcon, Ganon, Peach, Marth, etc.).

I just read something Pakman said in another thread that I thought was surprisingly relevant: "The thing about silly grab combos with Luigi is that the way this game is played, many times getting a character off stage is more important than dealing more damage."

4). His edgeguarding on Fox/Falco is not that good. A big part of this is that his combo finish moves aren't strong enough to send them offstage far enough to put them in an unfavorable recovery situation. His strongest combo finisher that you can actually land on a good opponent is dair, and that will send them in a trajectory that lets them recover high. When a space animal is recovering high, he can threaten to illusion to a platform and edge cancel. Luigi has to preemptively jump to cover this option. If he does so, the space animal can illusion to the edge and Luigi can't cover it. Add shortening the illusion to the equation, an option Luigi can only cover by guessing that they'll do it, and you have a situation where you must get a read to KO them, and the odds are not in your favor. This is very different from their edgeguarding on you, which they can do methodically and without guessing.

Fox can also start his up b high and angle to the edge, which is really safe vs anything except an edgehog or an ftilt at the very edge, which require Luigi to guess.

His range is also not good enough to base his gameplan on keeping opponents out.

While some of your points are valid in Luigi's difficulty against edge guarding Spacies, it's not really that bothersome. Illusion to a platform and edge cancel? Because that happens so incredibly often? How will we ever manage such a strategy? Hardly cause for panic. Stick out a few b-airs and see how many illusions on stage they're doing after. Or alternatively, edge hog to make them recover above, wavedash from the ledge and get a quick f-tilt, u-smash, or d-smash. Also, Falco's recovery distance is definitely inadequate against a skilled Luigi who has plenty of options. Even if he can't KO his opponent on the first shot, his agility allows him to rinse and repeat the edgeguarding process seamlessly until the job is done.

5). points 1-4 mean that Luigi isn't going to be able to keep up with the good characters on the basis of his offense, provided that they play correctly against him. Luigi's defensive game is not nearly as good as Samus', and his range is not as good as Ganon or Marth's, so he can't base his gameplan off defense either.

Which is why he needs to balance both to be effective against characters that exploit his weaknesses. Because while his defense isn't good enough to employ a primarily defensive strategy and his offense is too easily neutralized to always be on the attack, he's amazing in between. Knowing when to strike and how long to continue your attack is essential.

 

[omgliekkewl]

I think other characters are better at playing "small ball" than Luigi is ... <_<
Namely like ... Samus

I don't think his defensive game is good enough to be able to "small ball" your way to victory like Samus can. He doesn't have the up-b out of shield or Samus's CC / tilt poke game and Samus gets out of combos much easier

Gets out of combos much easier? Not really.

And yes, Samus does defense better than Luigi because...she's Samus. You can't play Luigi solely like Samus or like Sheik or Marth or any other character. You have to play him like Luigi which means drawing from other character strategies (like Samus' "small ball" against near-unapproachable match-ups such as Ganon or Peach or Puff's b-air baiting against someone with better range) and improvising on demand. Unless we're able to harness his lightning speed intelligently and start playing our opponents rather than the characters they're using (and using tier list johns), the sense of futility in the Luigi forums will always be there.

Sheik can shoot you down very easily for low recoveries. And she's fine vs them anyway because of how good her ledgehop aerials are. So I don't see how recovering low helps you in that one, but sure.

Ganon is also better vs low recoveries in this one because he can drop off with backwards Uair and it will kill Luigi when he gets close to the stage and if he's done it right it won't trade with anything because of ledge invincibility. He also has a very good ledgestall to facilitate this.

Falco can jump out and spike you for committing to anything even if you are recovering high. And can shoot you with a billion lasers to kill your momentum and force you to commit at some point.

Fox sure whatever. But Fox covers high recoveries fine with his Bair anyway. It's not very hard to jump off and kick Luigi.

I think Sheik is one of (if not THE) hardest matchup for Luigi if the person knows how to play against one. That said, she's not invincible on the ledge and recovering low for Luigi gives him a better chance of reducing damage taken (read: repetitive b-airs until she's ready to f-air) getting back to the stage. A good cyclone has a ton of hit boxes and can rise the entire width of Dreamland. If you stay just low enough with your cyclone (almost like a hover) you can easily transition into a rising u-air (high priority move) and before reaching the crest of the jump, use up-B to catch the ledge while the Sheik is still stunned...this all assuming the Sheik is trying to drop down from the edge and gimp me. In my experience, most Sheiks either get caught in my flurry of hit boxes or don't drop low enough, having expected me to rise higher with my cyclone. This isn't the end-all recovery strategy but I hope it illustrates that Luigi is a little more capable than you give him credit. Not likely as you seem pretty unwaivering in your opinion of what is and what can be with Luigi's matchups.

Your Ganon argument isn't how the Ganon-edgeguarding-Luigi relationship works. If Ganon is on the edge, I automatically am not going below him. He's too dangerous, plain and simple. If he tries to sneak onto the edge with a waveland off the stage or a platform, I'll stall him by jumping away from the edge and using my cyclone to quickly rise above or around him (and perhaps airdodging straight onto the stage). I only recover below if Ganon is on the stage or in the air (in a preemptive effort to kill me up high) in which case I can stall until Ganon's options are exhausted and he has to return to the ledge with Up-B (a good time to use my Up-B and stun him).

Falco is dangerous up top and down low, no doubt, but I treat him pretty much the same way as I do Ganon and I do just fine. Falco's game off the edge is a short range making it pretty standard and predictable and lasers really aren't that annoying and in certain contexts can be used to DI into a better position.

 

[Wenbobular]

While some of your points are valid in Luigi's difficulty against edge guarding Spacies, it's not really that bothersome. Illusion to a platform and edge cancel? Because that happens so incredibly often? How will we ever manage such a strategy? Hardly cause for panic. Stick out a few b-airs and see how many illusions on stage they're doing after. Or alternatively, edge hog to make them recover above, wavedash from the ledge and get a quick f-tilt, u-smash, or d-smash. Also, Falco's recovery distance is definitely inadequate against a skilled Luigi who has plenty of options. Even if he can't KO his opponent on the first shot, his agility allows him to rinse and repeat the edgeguarding process seamlessly until the job is done.

Even having the option to illusion onto a platform complicates the edgeguarding process. Luigi's aerial finishers aren't exactly knees - hitting with a chop or Dair that doesn't kill them outright will not set you up for another edgeguard.

Sticking out Bairs loses to shortening the illusion, as does ledgedash from the edge to cover the onstage illusion.

I don't think you know how heavy Falco is. Do you really think backthrow sends Falco far enough that you have a guaranteed edgeguard on him? Falco / Fox have very little lag after landing from a recovery, so you have to commit to one option or the other to cover both options. Getup attack is a decent option, but that doesn't cover the slightly higher illusion above the ledge.

Your Ganon argument isn't how the Ganon-edgeguarding-Luigi relationship works. If Ganon is on the edge, I automatically am not going below him. He's too dangerous, plain and simple. If he tries to sneak onto the edge with a waveland off the stage or a platform, I'll stall him by jumping away from the edge and using my cyclone to quickly rise above or around him (and perhaps airdodging straight onto the stage). I only recover below if Ganon is on the stage or in the air (in a preemptive effort to kill me up high) in which case I can stall until Ganon's options are exhausted and he has to return to the ledge with Up-B (a good time to use my Up-B and stun him).

Falco is dangerous up top and down low, no doubt, but I treat him pretty much the same way as I do Ganon and I do just fine. Falco's game off the edge is a short range making it pretty standard and predictable and lasers really aren't that annoying and in certain contexts can be used to DI into a better position.

This is some pretty funny theorycrafting

People who know how to edgeguard Luigi don't hang on the ledge. You wait on stage and punish side-b lag by jumping out there and hitting him. If you try to recover low you get stuffed by tipped Uair. If you recover high you usually don't have enough time to charge, or if you do you land helplessly on stage where Ganon smacks you with his powerful Ganon moves. If you didn't get to charge, he tips you with a Uair and you're dead.

If you're lucky enough to misfire you hope Ganon is too slow to get to where you landed. Works much worse vs Falcon because he just runs over to where you are and knees you, but fortunately Ganon runs really slow.

As for Falco...

In theory I think Falco might actually be able to just stuff all your missile attempts with lasers and you just die from that unless you misfire...but I don't think anyone really does that.

Even so, doing any type of recovery above stage is asking to get spiked unless you misfire from really high up.

Then you still have to worry about slightly below the stage to get around runoff doublejump Dair. Optimally you probably want to be below the stage where he can't just ledgehop spike you with at least your down-b intact. From there you just have to trick him with your up-b timing, down-b mashing or doublejump (if you still have it) to get past his invincibility stall.

 

[omgliekkewl]

Even having the option to illusion onto a platform complicates the edgeguarding process. Luigi's aerial finishers aren't exactly knees - hitting with a chop or Dair that doesn't kill them outright will not set you up for another edgeguard.

Sticking out Bairs loses to shortening the illusion, as does ledgedash from the edge to cover the onstage illusion.

I don't think you know how heavy Falco is. Do you really think backthrow sends Falco far enough that you have a guaranteed edgeguard on him? Falco / Fox have very little lag after landing from a recovery, so you have to commit to one option or the other to cover both options. Getup attack is a decent option, but that doesn't cover the slightly higher illusion above the ledge.

If your B-airs are spaced between your opponent and the ledge, then the distance of the illusion is irrelevant. Luigi's B-air stays out long enough to cover all of Falco's options if the Luigi actually pays attention. Shortening the distance is only going to help them if I'm on the stage waiting for them and waiting onstage for a space animal to return is not a good strategy. If you stop thinking to try to KO an opponent at Falcon percentages and start using Luigi's moves at Luigi percentages, the D-air and Chop are plenty strong KO moves (and often lead to even easier edgeguard opportunities, so I don't know how you figure they aren't also setup moves).

This is some pretty funny theorycrafting

People who know how to edgeguard Luigi don't hang on the ledge. You wait on stage and punish side-b lag by jumping out there and hitting him. If you try to recover low you get stuffed by tipped Uair. If you recover high you usually don't have enough time to charge, or if you do you land helplessly on stage where Ganon smacks you with his powerful Ganon moves. If you didn't get to charge, he tips you with a Uair and you're dead.

If you're lucky enough to misfire you hope Ganon is too slow to get to where you landed. Works much worse vs Falcon because he just runs over to where you are and knees you, but fortunately Ganon runs really slow.

If you try to recover low, you wait for the U-air and avoid it. It's really not that hard to bait it out when you know it's coming and I do it almost every time my friend (who is an excellent Ganon main who knows the Luigi matchup inside and out) tries it. Using a charged over B to hit the bottom of the stage, sink a bit to bait the Ganon, watch U-air fly over your head, jump + chop + Up-B. I think the biggest challenge a Luigi is going to face is actually using the cyclone correctly and button mashing its full potential (which is a skill I have but a lot of Luigi's lack)

As for Falco...

In theory I think Falco might actually be able to just stuff all your missile attempts with lasers and you just die from that unless you misfire...but I don't think anyone really does that.

Even so, doing any type of recovery above stage is asking to get spiked unless you misfire from really high up.

Then you still have to worry about slightly below the stage to get around runoff doublejump Dair. Optimally you probably want to be below the stage where he can't just ledgehop spike you with at least your down-b intact. From there you just have to trick him with your up-b timing, down-b mashing or doublejump (if you still have it) to get past his invincibility stall.

You don't have to misfire from really high up to avoid Falco's spike. On stages with high ceilings like Dreamland or FD, DIing up and to the corner and using your cyclone once off stage to give you extra height gives Luigi plenty of time to get within range of the stage without being threatened. As for recovering low (which I agree is a better option most of the time), it's like you said, they can be tricked and avoided without too much trouble.

And telling me that back throwing a Falco off stage isn't a guaranteed kill is like telling me Luigi isn't in the top tier and expecting it to be news. Of course the back throw doesn't guarantee the kill, THE PLAYER guarantees the kill. Falco's weight almost always drops him below the edge (forward throws are even better because they're so quick and the Falco doesn't expect them/doesn't DI up) which turns into wavedash off edge into aerial or wavedash to edgehog, gain invincibility, wait to see how they're recovering and ledgehop an aerial in response (or hop back on stage in time to punish their from recovering).

 

[Wenbobular]

We should totally just settle this by posting vids. Clearly this argument isn't going to go anywhere with just talk.

I'm quite interested in this "dodging Ganon's Uair" technique and "covering all of space animals' recovery options" technique, because I'm not convinced they exist.

Videos of me and Winston coming soon.

 

[Bamesy]

LOL wooooow
I haven't read any of this yet but it happening yesterday is incredibly coincidentally awesome!!!
Intellectual discussion regarding stepping it up as Luigi, and I pick him up for the first time in months this morning (last night at 2am or so lol)
Good sign, good sign.

I'll read stuff later.
Glad there's smarts back here in these pity filled threads.

 

[Pogogo]

Luigi is awesome. I personally thought he was mid tier. Hes just so awesomely cool. His projectile sucks though holy crap. And his up b sucks holy crap. Its like hal wanted to give him like an unuasble projectile. Mario and doctor marios are way better. And the tornado is impossible to recover with. Why was it made this way? Its similar to fox's sh. Why is it so hard? Its not like it has to be.

 

[RoboticOwnageBuddy]

i have always liked luigi as a character in other games, but his brawl appearance falls short. He was my go to character in 64, but not melee and brawl. STILL BEATS MARIO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Wenbobular]

Doesn't beat Mario in 64 haha

 

[KirbyKaze]

guys i was wrong luigi is top tier

 

[Wenbobular]

Whatever you say Luigilover62

 

[KirbyKaze]

LuigiLover62 *****

 

[Wenbobular]

I hear that dude got 3rd at ROM3

 

[Bamesy]

He's cute too.

 

[otg]

How to edgeguard Doc (since someone here said they couldn't do it):

1.) Hit him offstage, doesn't really matter how far.
2.) Grab the ledge
3.) ????
4.) Dead Doc

 

[Bing]

lmao at that last post.
Personally I love Luigi, and you know, you can Potentially get there as him because he does have decent combo ability provided everything goes right, but he will never be a top tier, one of my mains is Luigi and I can honestly say, you can be the best Luigi in the World, but you're not going to be removing Peach or the IC's for him, its just a fact.

Btw does anyone find it amusing how the face of Nintendo is mid tier, and the best character from those sets of games(Super Mario) is the ***** he's trying to save? **** it, Peach can just kick bowsers *** with a few d-smashes, F-smash with frying pan the grab to ***** slap off of her castle, then go chill at home while Mario moves his ***** *** into the Kitchen and makes her dinner.

^ Sorry, im bored trying to code a website...

 

[StretchNutz]

Luigi can't be deemed irrelevant yet. I keep discovering new things about him.

 

[Winston]

Maybe if you discover ways of dealing with Sheik, Fox, Falco, and Falcon that don't rely on their matchup inexperience...

He's not "irrelevant" but for now he's clearly a step below the top 8 characters.

 

[StretchNutz]

New thread title: Luigi is not a step below the top 8 characters; an appeal to stop acting like he is.

Oh, wait.

 

[Winston]

Well, nobody thinks he's bottom tier or anything ... >.>

If you read the OP, he claims that Luigi is top tier, or at least can compete with the top tiers on even footing, which I'm disagreeing with.

Because, in my humble but seasoned SSBM opinion, if Luigi is played properly, he's one of the best characters in the cast.

 

[StretchNutz]

Yeah, Kirby is one of the best characters in the cast too. I'd even say he's in the top 26.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Luigi *****.

Probably 3rd.

Just like LuigiLover62 at RoM3

ZING

 

[Winston]

I tried to ask LuigiLover62 a question in Sheik Q&A but he didn't respond =(

 

[KirbyKaze]

I u-throwed because PP didn't counter it

he let himself land on the plats

didn't try to edgecancel it

didn't put maximum horizontal distance between me and him

he just went to the top / side plat closest to me

which meant easy tech chase / combo

i was out of practice so i didn't feel confident in going for reaction based d-throws

 

[Winston]

Man, getting 3rd while being out of practice.

 

[KirbyKaze]

stupid freezy internet