remember when nausicaa said that luigi is top 5 in the game? yeah I remember
I put luigi at around 8th-15th on a tentative tier list
I don't care where pmu puts him, and anybody who puts mario an entire tier ahead of luigi doesn't know about luigi
and honestly wavedropping isn't actually much harder than learning how to perfect waveland by itself, the actual skill it takes isn't very much, squirtle's shellshift movement shenanigans are all probably more tech intensive than a simple wavedrop (wavedrops also aren't specific to luigi like any character that has a good wavedash can utilize it, it's just a whole lot more relevant as luigi because a. you have the best wavedash and therefore best wavedrop in the game and b. all your other platform-to-air movement options suck so much)
as for how good luigi is: luigi has a lot of tools at a lot of mixups and is pretty capable at responding with ambiguity to a lot of situations
luigi has control of the ground, has faster and stronger moves with more practical range than the majority of characters on the ground, will **** you up in shield if he ever finds you there (especially on a platform because platform cancel nairs are harder than in melee but still a thing and platform cancel uairs are only a few frames slower but are a lot easier to perform), has control over the sh space with sh fireball and intangible utilts and usmashes along with sh disjointed fair, and if he catches you in neutral with enough space to manouvre he'll put you in sh fireball waveland situation where the only really non-punishable solution is the powershield reflect the fireball or scramble for a move of your own that goes through fireball quick enough to hit luigi (like marth fmash ayy lmao, but even then that only works if you get a read on the luigi approaching you (which can and will happen given the nature of sh fireball waveland but I'll get to that in a second)), and he can combo/kill you very easily (lol shoryu)
but those are just his buttons, his movement and the ambiguous nature of it is what makes luigi really good (and wavedropping isn't even relevant here that's largely just a get-out-of-here thing or a combo extender tool, it's biggest use as an offensive tool is a diagonal nair approach when the opponent isn't expecting it)
luigi can do two aerials (save nair) in a single sh and can waveland out of a single aerial. this allows him to both pressure space like marth as well as escape or follow up with a waveland either fowards or backwards (sh in neutral is a dumb thing to do if your opponent can hit you, so don't do it when you're too close. also this thing is why sh fireball camping is so good). luigi can do wavedrop breverse/wavebounce fireball shenanigans (bagels does them on occasion, I haven't actually found a definitive use (as in when you use them in this situation they are better than all other options) they're largely just an neutral/offensive mixup, especially when edgeguarding because you wavedrop off as if you were going for an offstage aerial and then breverse/wavebounce fireball instead to both return yourself to the stage as well as cover the mangle area with a fireball hitbox, while leaving yourself facing towards the edge in prime position to down angle foward tilt (aka DAFT that gawd (once upon a time I read this was oracle's favorite thing))). altho wavescuttling has been largely deemed by most people to be "vaportech" (ie tech that exists but doesn't have practical usage that will ever see the light of day ie smash4 perfect pivoting lmao), it actually is pretty useful to mixup movement in neutral (especially when playing a runaway sh fireball game, because you can feint a fireball waveland approach but then immediately do the 1-frame scuttle feint to return yourself to your initial position as well as possibly using a positionally safe dsmash to catch the opponent trying to approach) as well as when covering ledge options (is your opponent standing to close to the ledge for comfort? just do a ledgedash wavescuttle utilt which will come out during intangibility frames and give you momentum/stage control). also the myth that wavescuttling is only viable in one direction is wrong, in order to get the full momentum fient, it's the same frame/angle window facing either direction.
and that kind of brings us to my next topic, which is luigi's edge game. luigi (at least in my experience, idk) is one of the few (if not the only? not sure, possibly wolf) characters that can use being on the ledge as an advantageous stage position, and not just for non-interactive things like laser haxdash that leave no room for responding open. if you look at this video of xyk and june (
https://youtu.be/vhw3jLscjxA?t=308 is the timestamp of an example, though not the only one) you can see that staying on the edge of the stage with your back to the ledge is something that xyk uses to protect himself from crossups with banana as well as carve out a little bit of stage control when he needs it. when luigi is on the ledge, he can instantly regain a position close to center stage with a ledgedash if need be, but that's only in a worst case scenario. luigi gets an intangible aerial out of ledge, at which point he can either force the opponent to shield, where he can continue pressure with his usual double aerials, retreat to back to ledge for more invinc frames, or cross up over back towards center and get a situational stage position reversal or at least an escape from pressure. opponents are often forced into this situation because straying in the "sweet spot" of luigi ledgedash allows them to be able to be hit with any number of invuln options, not limited to jab, grab, dmsash, utilt, ftilt, and shoryuken (which on most stages can be made safe on shield by fading back and platform cancelling the endlag, or by regrabbing ledge again. luigi also still retains his sh fireball waveland from melee, as well as ledgejump waveland (which now can be turned into a wavedrop to regain center stage). luigi's ledge options especially when coupled with a side b ledgesnap allow him to punish a lot of offstage attempts to edgeguard
also luigi can grab ledge with sideb from onstage in case you didn't know but it's not thaaat useful
so, luigi pros and cons
pros: is very good at ground stage control in a traditional smash sense
is very good at overturning the traditional conceptions about stage control
is very good at being slippery and immediately regaining stage control/positioning from an otherwise advantageous position
has safe shield pressure that leads into grab, which leads into di mixup followups which lead into luigi aerials which kill quickly
is very good at clanking and beating out other clank responses
has godlike horizontal movement as well as a pretty quick initial upwards jump movement
rng on recovery can be farmed to basically give him an instant ticket back to stage while recovering high
jab is godlike, probably the best jab in the game
frame 3 nair that kills at like 130 and can also be used to set up combos/for oki
cons: really floaty
jumping is hella commitment lol
has trouble characters that can either power through his tools on the ground or have quick enough disjointed moves that playing the ground game suddenly becomes a whole lot more risky and luigi is forced to go back to sh fireballs and running away constantly, which is much harder to do than his game otherwise (see, luigi v marth, or luigi v bowser (cc dsmash armor is surprisingly good at dealing with typical luigi things (luigi has other ways of dealing with bowser but bowser still forces him to alter his gameplan))
has trouble with characters that can shut his ground game/horizontal game down with item play (see: link, diddy)
has trouble with characters that can ignore all of his ground movement and kinda run away or jump over him (falcon)
however, luigi has responses for all of these (such as taking item characters to triplat stages where he can move more vertically and not rely on the ground, or playing a campy poke game focused solely on ftilt, or approacing with wavedash spotdodge to avoid marth dtilts, or jsut fireball camping), but each requires a more or less drastic shift in playstyle/strategy
this is why I put luigi somewhere in high tier but not in top tier, because he has tools to deal with counter-play but has to alter his gameplan quite a bit in some cases
also I think that luigi is a solo-mainable character that has "returns on skill difference" which means if you are better at playing smash as a concept you will have the ability to beat your opponent. if you are better than them, there's not really a situation where you can get cheesed or hard countered out of a win.
these opinions expressed here are not the opinions of The Luigi Skype Group as a whole and The Luigi Skype Group does not necessarily endorse such opinions
ie I'm a scrub who as no fundamentals (-Drinkingfood) and am probably wrong about lots of things
sorry about the length and the parentheticals I'll deal with whatever angry formatting comments you people give me later (also **** spoiler tags I aint about to do that). it also is dawning on me that I have class tomorrow and readings I haven't finished yet and sleep I must obtain so I guess my post ends here goodnight all, squirtle is broken Kappa