Techchasing: Luigi's Lethal.

[BluEG]

I personally think Techchasing is Luigi's biggest strength, and an asset that his playstyle should work around-atleast against fast-fallers and mid-weight characters.

I'm curious as to how other's approach tech chasing, I'll describe a belief I have and that I'm striving towards as I improve.

I believe that no matter what option your opponent chooses, if you wait and react you can get a follow up EVERY single time. Obviously there are circumstances where you won't be able to get into position, but Luigi is fast enough to get there almost everysingle time. You just have to train a good reaction time and good observational skills.

Fact: Luigi's wavedash is as long and fast as any character's techroll.

With this in mind, I believe the #1 goal should be to get Luigi positioned in the exact spot a tech would occur when you use an attack that is a catalyst for one, those attacks being for example, an U-tilt, Dsmash, D-throw, U-throw, etc.
After Luigi is in position, observe what they do and react accordingly.
If they don't tech, use an attack, if they tech in place, wait and do an attack, if they techroll, react and wavedash with them as they roll.

Essentially I've been reacting and chasing with a grab, dsmash, or utilt and continuing into a combo.

Thoughts?

 

[milistisia2]

I agree that tech chasing is amazing on luigi. Versus a fox or falco 1-2 tech chases could rack up 60-80% and get them off the edge ready to edgeguard.

I approach tech chasing like this. First, guess the tech. If you guess a roll tech wavedash and hit them with a dsmash or something if you are right. If you are wrong and they teched in place or getup attacked, wait for the right time and wavedash towards them and do an attack for a combo. If you are wrong and instead they roll the other way, wavedash and turn around with a dash if necessary, and JC grab. The reason i grab is because normally by the time you get over to them they already have a shield up. If you predict a get up attack or in place tech, shield and either grab or short hop OOS into fair or something else. If you predict they will wait, jab reset and do a move for a high damage combo, or up b if they are in kill %.

Im not gonna go over which moves to use when, and im not going over how to read techs, but that is how i chase.

If you practice id say 75% of the time you could get a successful tech chase

 

[Winston]

Luigi is good at techchasing but worse at techchasing than Fox or Sheik or Marth by a large margin.

He just seems better sometimes because his techchases are easier to do and people have worse defensive skills vs. him.

 

[KirbyKaze]

I think the best thing about his tech chase is that he has a 17% 5 frame d-smash that launches for hitting non-techs and an Up+B with ludicrous KO power

So he doesn't have to do it for long vs a lot of characters to possibly go lethal

But yeah he's not as in control as the situation as Marth, Sheik, Fox, etc. because he's a clown and clowns make people laugh

I still think his damage could be optimized greatly in this respect though

 

[milistisia2]

Winston, do you have any video example or explenaton of why fox shiek and marth are better? Sorry if its obvious or something, im new to competitive melee.

I play marth a bit and i feel that even though marth can do the same as luigi in terms of covering options, i feel like the punishes arent as strong as what we-g has.

Insight?

 

[Winston]

Mostly the fact that he can't react to cover all tech options. Even though he has the speed, the WD input makes it too difficult to truly react to techs like sheik/fox/marth can. If someone wants to prove me wrong that'd be cool, but until then, I don't think its viable.

Also if people do things like DI the throws/dsmashes, his punishes become a lot less good.

 

[BluEG]

Mostly the fact that he can't react to cover all tech options. Even though he has the speed, the WD input makes it too difficult to truly react to techs

IDK, WD input is so mindless to me since I learned the game with Luigi. Doesn't seem impossible at all, just a button input to learn

 

[Winston]

I make that statement based on not only my own experiences but also observing many other Luigi and ICs mains.

Go ahead and prove me wrong, though, if you can. It would make Luigi a lot better

 

[milistisia2]

I make that statement based on not only my own experiences but also observing many other Luigi and ICs mains.

Go ahead and prove me wrong, though, if you can. It would make Luigi a lot better

What do i need to do to prove you wrong? I dont even know what youre claiming. Sure you need to be familiar with we-g and the distances of his wavedashes, but hes fast enough. The only thing maybe is that his punishes for get up attack are not very good or reliable. Im thinking get up attack is probably his biggest weakness in tech chasing

Also, kirbykaze, what do you mean upb kills at 45%? I dont evem thinl it will kill jiggz at 45. Up b is pretty weak

 

[Winston]

^ I was referring to this

"Mostly the fact that he can't react to cover all tech options. Even though he has the speed, the WD input makes it too difficult to truly react to techs like sheik/fox/marth can. If someone wants to prove me wrong that'd be cool, but until then, I don't think its viable."

Many players can reaction techchase fully with Fox and Sheik when they are on point. Many players can cover all tech options with Marth and Falcon on reaction as well, with only the missed tech being the tricky part, but that can be worked around (though not in a guaranteed fashion). Some players (very few) can react to the getup attack, allowing them to fully cover all options with Marth and Falcon as well (and with Sheik vs. people who know how to SD jabs/when their ftilt is stale). These characters all have fast dashes, so all you have to do is dash to follow the tech.

I have never seen any player be able to reaction techchase fully with wavedash inputs, with either Luigi or ICs. I certainly tried it, during my ~3 years of maining Luigi, but decided it wasn't viable for me personally.

All you'd have to do to prove me wrong is to produce a video of Luigi playing vs. a fastfaller, techchasing with a high enough success rate and a big enough sample size to indicate that it is reaction (and not the fastfaller player being extremely predictable). One full tournament set (or like 3 friendlies) would probably be enough.

Luigi's techchase game is less likely to build big damage than Fox/Marth's (because he can't react, and his combo moves can be mitigated by DI) and less likely to end in a KO/good edgeguard situation than Sheik/Falcon's (because his finisher is significantly worse).

His techchasing is still quite good, but I just don't think it's as good as the top tiers. It may not even be better than Peach's (Peach is less good at covering options, but each hit of hers is more valuable. She also has a lot of situations with 3/4s option coverage if you are good at reacting, similar to Luigi, though hers are more difficult).