Learning the game as Luigi

[carcosa]

Hi guys,

I'm completely new to SSBU and come from moba and tcg. I really do struggle right now learning the game. I try to learn the hard way like I did with DBFZ by practicing as much as I can online.

Right now, I learn Luigi and it seems like he is a much more difficult character than what I expected. Basically, I lose like 95% of my 1v1 online games and my elo is 8000 pts or something atm.
I have a few questions about Luigi :

1. I understood that Luigi is a character based off combos starting with down-throw but I have trouble grabbing, especially knowing when to grab and getting close enough to grab. Oftenly either I'm too far or I pre-shot the grab and the opponent is somehow behind me. I feel like grabbing is hard to succeed. Do you have tips for that ?
2. Even when I somehow manage to grab and down-throw, I rarely connect more than one hit (which is a single nair or fair) because it feels like there is a massive lag after the nair and I can't connect anything else.
3. I was told that Luigi is good at aerials so most of the match, I'm spamming the forward direction + X+A (I think it's called Fair) trying to miraculously hit the opponent but it rarely does, especially when the opponent is small like pichu or kirby. I have the intuition I'm not playing it right...
4. Generally speaking, when do you smash attack ? I actually never smash attack because it looks even harder to succeed than grabbing. I mean the range is too short and the risk of missing and being hard punished is high.
5. I see pro players like MrConCon spamming stuff like forward back-air. If I'm right, the exact moves are going forward then suddenly looking back and executing back-air, all of that in half a second. Is it something I should be able to pull off as a Luigi player or can we consider that to be pro-player stuff ?

Thanks a lot for your patience and kindness to the garbage player I am and see you later on the field of justice (oh wait)!

 

[RyGuyUnmasked]

1. He used to, with his new grab, its a lot harder to actually get a grab where it is easier to line up some simple grounded attacks. Go for grab only when you are reading for a roll or dash attack into you and you know the distance of the tether.

2. NAir has a lot of end lag and you won't get to perform another action on a short hop NAir. Best thing I've found to do out of a Down Throw is Up Tilting the opponent for a bit (three at most), mind you we're talking 0% where down throw puts them in a position for it, and then Down Special to where you get i-frames to any attack that they may use to try to stop the Up Tilts as well as it will pull them in. After all that simply follow up with BAir wherever you see them heading towards.

3. Luigi is good at aerials but you have to be throwing them out smart, BAir is pretty safe to be tossing out but FAir is short with little push to easily get an attack right back in your face. I prefer grounded Luigi as you have access to more of his mind game shenanigans.

4. Smash Attacking is good to do when you have a read, notice the enemy is falling towards you from above to DAir? Shield into an out of Shield Up Smash. Know an enemy is gonna roll into you? Down Smash.

5. Not too sure on Pro Play but more than likely it shouldn't be too advanced considering anyone practicing the game in general will eventually get that down. I don't watch VODs or anything and I'm sitting at 1.3 Million. A lot of the character is mind gaming as well as literally just sometimes hoping for that Misfire to randomly come at the perfect time.

 

[Lypion]

Go for grab only when you are reading for a roll or dash attack into you and you know the distance of the tether.

I disagree.
Everything else you stated is fine but i think luigis grab is still powerful and should be his main objective for low percent combos and should not be ONLY used for rolls and dashattacks since good players rarely do that. To answer the question you basically force your opponent to shield alot so you can get the grab when it is mostly unexpected. If you force yourself to just get a grab it wont work.
You can force shield by shooting alot of fireballs and using save attacks like backair

 

[RyGuyUnmasked]

I disagree.
Everything else you stated is fine but i think luigis grab is still powerful and should be his main objective for low percent combos and should not be ONLY used for rolls and dashattacks since good players rarely do that. To answer the question you basically force your opponent to shield alot so you can get the grab when it is mostly unexpected. If you force yourself to just get a grab it wont work.
You can force shield by shooting alot of fireballs and using save attacks like backair

Depends, a lot of people don't generally tend to shield, and then the people who do are usually ones who also know how to combo with their character and don't care too much on your neutral game, tending to rush in. I can see mind gaming for a grab working but just not off his neutral game. And when you consider a good amount of players are playing projectile spam characters, that strategy if it at all would have worked, is completely gone. Could be wrong, but around what I consider mid elo where I am, I don't see anyone stopping for fireballs.

 

[Lypion]

Well ofc it is matchup dependent but fireballs indeed are part of luigis neutral. If you don't stop for them you'll get hit which also can lead into a grab. This is not some low elo stuff if you use them effectively. pro's also use them in neutral if you watch tournaments. Either way i just wanted to say that your "only" kinda mislead and there are a lot more different possibillitys for a grab than just rolls and dashattacks if you can agree on that i just wanted to give an example

 

[Solaris_Noid]

I hardly ever grab with Luigi now unless it's an extremely hard read because of the startup. Of course there's more ways to set up for a grab, but not everyone online is like that. You can't really condition someone to shield if they're always mashing ZSS Up B or something.