TobiasXK
Smash Ace
i meant to make a big post on this a while ago, but it slipped my mind. basically, as i'd been playing more and more Marth in friendlies, i was realizing that there is a really natural precision to Marth's movement owing largely to his wavedash and initial dash lengths. in some ways, Luigi's super slipperiness had started to seem like a bit of an obstacle in certain marginal control situations, by comparison. but the reality is just that there are a lot of movement and spacing tools that just aren't used, used enough, or used well enough by most (all?) Luigi players.
i think for me, as a person who became really obsessed with pivoting a long time ago, that has always been a big opportunity for Luigi. and with the new highly-technical speed of things, i think that that's especially true these days. i've always experimented with it extensively and i'm always surprised when i see that there are players who don't even use it for simple things, such as ensuring that d-smash/u-smash hit on the proper side at the proper time.
obviously, pivoting isn't the easiest thing in the world to do, but being able to do more advanced pivot inputs such as pivot to neutral or pivot jab or pivot tilts is super valuable; i'm not sure why so many players seem content only being proficient with pivot JC grab (which is strictly worse than real pivot grabs) and pivot c-stick smashes.
some really neat things that can be done with Luigi utilizing pivoting:
spaced wavedash pokes/approaches:
essentially, you can wavedash toward someone, dash back and immediately pivot so that your jab/grab/d-smash/f-tilt/whatever will be spaced from that exact point, rather than you continuing to slide forward while performing the animation. practicing here with ARC, we've tested out a handful of Marth vs. Luigi wall-out strategies where wavedash -> pivot f-tilt was one of the only ways i could sneak in a hit—this was even able to connect past Marth's down-tilt without trading.
advancing pivots:
for shorter range situations, you can do the same thing out of initial dash. the utility is different, being more a way to quickly step in with an attack rather than preventing unwanted sliding, but the execution is same apart from dashing instead of wavedashing.
you can also do advancing pivot f-smashes by simply dashing in, pivoting, and f-smashing back in the first direction with the c-stick. i've used this to punish missed techs on certain setups, and i've also started taking note of DI-reactive true combo setups for this. i do them all day long with Marth vs floaties, so i figured why not try the same with my main.
and lets not forget that you can also tack on dashes to the end of a perfect wavedash, so advancing pivots can eke out some extra distance for you to secure those super long-range f-smash reads.
tech-chase positioning:
for certain close/mid-range DI reactions, empty pivoting lets you quickly get to where your opponent is going to land where wavedashing can't. it does leave you facing the wrong way to jab/grab/d-smash missed/tech-in-place, but you can turn around on reaction, and for any techroll, you can turn in-transit while wavedashing to chase.
pivot shielddrops:
this works similarly to the "shai drop" method of shield-dropping, but you end up facing the opposite direction, which can be really useful in non-threatened situations when you want to just get down with some space, and in situations where you want to outspace your opponents under-platform options by moving to fall beside them before/while they swing instead of right on top of them afterwards.
so pivoting is hella cool (tm).
backing off from that a large amount though, waveless dashing just in general is pretty useful...as are walking and running. i've seen a lot of playstyles that maintain perfect wavedash spacing and use that as almost the only form of ground movement. but Luigi's dashdance and foxtrot can be a better way to hit certain spacings. additionally, using Luigi's initial dash opens up shield-stopping in addition to pivoting as a spacing tool, and any dash-based movement can be combined with wavedashing to expand that arsenal as well, which we see in the super-common dash -> wavedash burst of speed, or the momentum stalling that everyone uses as a taunt and sometimes a timing mixup.
shield-stopping was one of my earliest methods of getting around spaced pokes such as Marth's d-tilt at low percents. i could wavedash forward -> dash -> shieldstop and hop over into fastfall fair, which would get CC'd and earn a knockdown sometimes—which wouldn't be possible with f-tilt until way higher. and i think shield-stopping in general is one of those things that has actually caught on with a lot of players of all characters, so.
dash-canceling (run-canceling might be more accurate?), on the other hand, is something that was super common back in the day that i don't see a ton of anymore. but it's something like 13 frames before actionable, so for certain distances, getting a run-cancel jab/f-tilt/d-smash is maybe a better option than the wavedash in, just for cutting a few frames.
and speaking of cutting frames, there are also just straightforward optimizations that can be made:
doublejump wavelanding as a platform climb method, for instance, is something that i'm super fond of doing that is as fast or slower than simple fulljump wavelanding on i think all side platform heights. another common thing i've seen is the fulljump straight horizontal platform waveland, which also tends to add a couple of airborne frames compared to a fulljump angled waveland.
another area of speed optimization is fast-falling; though this isn't strictly movement/spacing, it does relate. we can fit fastfalls into shawl aerials and ledgehop aerial wavelands, during shielddrops and every other instance of coming down from a platform. and for me, at least, the falling speed difference is a big part of what makes Marth feel so smooth, so getting super crisp about squeezing in fastfalls helps alot.
obviously speed isn't always the goal, so this sort of thing is situational. but some people might not realize that there are areas like this where frames can be cut when needed.
no-impact landing is another technique under this umbrella. while most Luigis i've seen will utilize this in platform drop > NIL feints/setups, it can also be performed while rising as a platform climb technique.
alot of this stuff can be considered already a part of the new Luigi meta in that we're seeing a handful of players each using some set of the tech that's available. but some of it isn't talked about very much, hasn't trickled down or propagated very much in actual gameplay, or just isn't universally known.
so i wanted to just list out some things that going forward i'd like to see more of from all Luigi players at all levels, since the techskill floor and ceiling in the Melee community have both been raised so ridiculously high compared to when i was most active.
and i'd love to hear other stuff that you guys are doing to speed up your game and optimize certain things—and especially dealing with marginal spacing differences and precision movement, since those are the main problem areas that over-reliance on wavedashing introduces: speed and distance being tied together in this intrinsic way coupled with 10 frames of LandFallSpecial lag tying you up for some portion of that movement range.
i think for me, as a person who became really obsessed with pivoting a long time ago, that has always been a big opportunity for Luigi. and with the new highly-technical speed of things, i think that that's especially true these days. i've always experimented with it extensively and i'm always surprised when i see that there are players who don't even use it for simple things, such as ensuring that d-smash/u-smash hit on the proper side at the proper time.
obviously, pivoting isn't the easiest thing in the world to do, but being able to do more advanced pivot inputs such as pivot to neutral or pivot jab or pivot tilts is super valuable; i'm not sure why so many players seem content only being proficient with pivot JC grab (which is strictly worse than real pivot grabs) and pivot c-stick smashes.
some really neat things that can be done with Luigi utilizing pivoting:
spaced wavedash pokes/approaches:
essentially, you can wavedash toward someone, dash back and immediately pivot so that your jab/grab/d-smash/f-tilt/whatever will be spaced from that exact point, rather than you continuing to slide forward while performing the animation. practicing here with ARC, we've tested out a handful of Marth vs. Luigi wall-out strategies where wavedash -> pivot f-tilt was one of the only ways i could sneak in a hit—this was even able to connect past Marth's down-tilt without trading.
advancing pivots:
for shorter range situations, you can do the same thing out of initial dash. the utility is different, being more a way to quickly step in with an attack rather than preventing unwanted sliding, but the execution is same apart from dashing instead of wavedashing.
you can also do advancing pivot f-smashes by simply dashing in, pivoting, and f-smashing back in the first direction with the c-stick. i've used this to punish missed techs on certain setups, and i've also started taking note of DI-reactive true combo setups for this. i do them all day long with Marth vs floaties, so i figured why not try the same with my main.
and lets not forget that you can also tack on dashes to the end of a perfect wavedash, so advancing pivots can eke out some extra distance for you to secure those super long-range f-smash reads.
tech-chase positioning:
for certain close/mid-range DI reactions, empty pivoting lets you quickly get to where your opponent is going to land where wavedashing can't. it does leave you facing the wrong way to jab/grab/d-smash missed/tech-in-place, but you can turn around on reaction, and for any techroll, you can turn in-transit while wavedashing to chase.
pivot shielddrops:
this works similarly to the "shai drop" method of shield-dropping, but you end up facing the opposite direction, which can be really useful in non-threatened situations when you want to just get down with some space, and in situations where you want to outspace your opponents under-platform options by moving to fall beside them before/while they swing instead of right on top of them afterwards.
so pivoting is hella cool (tm).
backing off from that a large amount though, waveless dashing just in general is pretty useful...as are walking and running. i've seen a lot of playstyles that maintain perfect wavedash spacing and use that as almost the only form of ground movement. but Luigi's dashdance and foxtrot can be a better way to hit certain spacings. additionally, using Luigi's initial dash opens up shield-stopping in addition to pivoting as a spacing tool, and any dash-based movement can be combined with wavedashing to expand that arsenal as well, which we see in the super-common dash -> wavedash burst of speed, or the momentum stalling that everyone uses as a taunt and sometimes a timing mixup.
shield-stopping was one of my earliest methods of getting around spaced pokes such as Marth's d-tilt at low percents. i could wavedash forward -> dash -> shieldstop and hop over into fastfall fair, which would get CC'd and earn a knockdown sometimes—which wouldn't be possible with f-tilt until way higher. and i think shield-stopping in general is one of those things that has actually caught on with a lot of players of all characters, so.
dash-canceling (run-canceling might be more accurate?), on the other hand, is something that was super common back in the day that i don't see a ton of anymore. but it's something like 13 frames before actionable, so for certain distances, getting a run-cancel jab/f-tilt/d-smash is maybe a better option than the wavedash in, just for cutting a few frames.
and speaking of cutting frames, there are also just straightforward optimizations that can be made:
doublejump wavelanding as a platform climb method, for instance, is something that i'm super fond of doing that is as fast or slower than simple fulljump wavelanding on i think all side platform heights. another common thing i've seen is the fulljump straight horizontal platform waveland, which also tends to add a couple of airborne frames compared to a fulljump angled waveland.
another area of speed optimization is fast-falling; though this isn't strictly movement/spacing, it does relate. we can fit fastfalls into shawl aerials and ledgehop aerial wavelands, during shielddrops and every other instance of coming down from a platform. and for me, at least, the falling speed difference is a big part of what makes Marth feel so smooth, so getting super crisp about squeezing in fastfalls helps alot.
obviously speed isn't always the goal, so this sort of thing is situational. but some people might not realize that there are areas like this where frames can be cut when needed.
no-impact landing is another technique under this umbrella. while most Luigis i've seen will utilize this in platform drop > NIL feints/setups, it can also be performed while rising as a platform climb technique.
alot of this stuff can be considered already a part of the new Luigi meta in that we're seeing a handful of players each using some set of the tech that's available. but some of it isn't talked about very much, hasn't trickled down or propagated very much in actual gameplay, or just isn't universally known.
so i wanted to just list out some things that going forward i'd like to see more of from all Luigi players at all levels, since the techskill floor and ceiling in the Melee community have both been raised so ridiculously high compared to when i was most active.
and i'd love to hear other stuff that you guys are doing to speed up your game and optimize certain things—and especially dealing with marginal spacing differences and precision movement, since those are the main problem areas that over-reliance on wavedashing introduces: speed and distance being tied together in this intrinsic way coupled with 10 frames of LandFallSpecial lag tying you up for some portion of that movement range.
