Tier List Speculation

[G13_Flux]

He actually remained relatively untouched throughout the updates. Most of his changes are down b and up changes (the distance they go, not power). In 2.6, his up b had less landing lag than it does now, and down b had less end lag, and 3.0 retained both moves. His mobility both ground and air were the same as they are now (dash dance, wavedash distance, wavescuttle, platform movement, etc). The only real difference I can think of off the top of my head was his dtilt, which popped them up like in melee. In 3.0, his up b didn't go as high, and his dtilt became a 15% mr saturn (except not as much shield damage, but still a considerable amount). Side b sweetspot was always the same throughout every version thus far (at least 2.5 and up; I have no experience with anything before).

In 3.5 the only buffs he got were indirect, and that's mainly due to other character getting nerfed and the dpad down b, which was the result of adding simultaneous button press for 3.5. The only direct buffs he got were dash attack (which is now safe on hit and does a ton of shield damage, plus actually knocks the opponent back a little) and uair (which has two more active frames). Down b got nerfed because it has more endlag and thus cannot really follow up with anything threatening, thus making it a less safe approach option (3.0 down b was mad stupid because it had almost no end lag and could follow up with up b and down air, nair, etc). The only reason as to why the down b nerf is negligible is because of dpad, which in turn makes it even better. I think removal of the dpad trick will make his recovery pretty easy to gimp. The only other changes he got were the green effect on fireball, misfire, and up b sweetspot, which was simply cosmetic. And fixing a few glitchy things like the hitlag on down air.

The reasons why Luigi is doing well now is because more players are using him, and thus are finding newer things with the character. MU inexperience also seems to play a factor as not many Luigis made it to top 8 or grands, etc, in previous installments. Aside from Eli and Vist, there really weren't many good Luigi's either. And this is noticeable in the match with Dong and oracle where Oracle's di button just stopped working when he was getting combo'd into aerial up b. He also got hit by jab up b's (which should never work unless the opponent is a little above ground). Sethlon did not know that he could crouch cancel down b and punish the end lag either, among other things.

@ Foo What do you mean by "dejanked"? Is Luigi's long wavedash "janky"? Or perhaps is it the down and side b? (I can probably agree with the latter two, but I don't know what you really mean by "jank")

@ Ripple it does not. There is no intangibility for his head on upsmash in this game. It was in melee, however, so I can see why you'd be confused. It has a bit of range but that's really it. You can check debug mode to confirm.

debug mode actually doesnt show intangibility on individual body parts. whether or not luigis up smash actually does have it, i dont know. but i know that you wont find out from debug mode.

 

[ThegreatVaporeon1]

Edit: just read your post again; i did not know that. then im probably wrong.

So does fox's head also have invul on his up smash as it did in melee or no?

 

[G13_Flux]

as far as i know it does. although i think his nose doesnt.. again, not 100%. i think its very fair to assume that whatever he had in melee is what he has here. hes got his known changes, like shine invulnerability, reduced laser damage at a distance, and the upsmash KB nerf, but i think thats the extent of changes.

 

[nimigoha]

That's super weird. Although since it's a colour overlay and only a few things have partial invincibility it's not a priority.

 

[Foo]

@ Foo What do you mean by "dejanked"? Is Luigi's long wavedash "janky"? Or perhaps is it the down and side b? (I can probably agree with the latter two, but I don't know what you really mean by "jank")

Rng misfire can change an easy edgeguard into you dying by pure luck if you aren't really careful, his moves do absurd amounts of damage for no clear reason, dair-nair-jab combo can practically break shields, down-b travels at ludicrous speed with good priority while doing 20% and will lead to a 60% combo at many %s, his side-b grabs ledge while he is nowhere close to it, his down-b can go from just above the bottom blastzone to ledge by itself, his nair is a busted combo breaker with silly priority that will kill you (I often will be trying to combo a luigi and space upair perfectly and then die to luigi nair without my upair even hitting him), with his recovery it's effectively impossible to gimp him unless your character has a semispike/spike/meteor, and his aerials have basically no lag letting you just constantly keep throwing them out. His wavedash is kinda jank, but not really. These are the most obnoxious things. I'm sure I missed stuff, but whatever.

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

Mario and GnW used to have head intangibility on upsmash, but it was taken away rip.
A lot of characters don't have intangibility on their UpBs but Mario and Luigi retain it. Don't want Luigi to be gimped easily.... That would be awful. I like the part where Sethlon hit Dong away from ledge with dair 4 times and he still recovered.

Mario still has it, actually.

 

[jtm94]

Aw man I thought Mario's head invincibility was removed. Is there invincibility on cape as well or is it just entirely the turn around hitbox? Everything is a lie now, nothing I know is truth.

GnW's dair is pretty alright, but it would be nice if it was Ness's dair. That'd be cool. Meteoring my foes into the blast zone faster than they can DJ.

Know what else is cool. Dong doesn't b-pad as Luigi, I respect him.

 

[InfinityCollision]

Pretty sure G&W's usmash still has head invincibility/intangibility as well.

 

[Agi]

With all this talk about partial intangibility, I really hope 3.6 debug mode gets a hurtbox viewer.

 

[Ripple]

I asked strong bad about that before 3.5 dropped. hurtbox viewer is never coming

 

[Player -0]

rip in peace the dream

 

[ThegreatVaporeon1]

Rng misfire can change an easy edgeguard into you dying by pure luck if you aren't really careful, his moves do absurd amounts of damage for no clear reason, dair-nair-jab combo can practically break shields, down-b travels at ludicrous speed with good priority while doing 20% and will lead to a 60% combo at many %s, his side-b grabs ledge while he is nowhere close to it, his down-b can go from just above the bottom blastzone to ledge by itself, his nair is a busted combo breaker with silly priority that will kill you (I often will be trying to combo a luigi and space upair perfectly and then die to luigi nair without my upair even hitting him), with his recovery it's effectively impossible to gimp him unless your character has a semispike/spike/meteor, and his aerials have basically no lag letting you just constantly keep throwing them out. His wavedash is kinda jank, but not really. These are the most obnoxious things. I'm sure I missed stuff, but whatever.

Down b and side b are not like melee. Melee down b is no where near as good both horizontally or vertically, and side b can't sweetspot ledges in that game. It was in Brawl where side b could sweet spot ledges and down b could get ridiculous vertical height (he gets more height in that game btw).
I can agree with you with his current down b though, but only if he's using it with dpad because it makes the moves incredibly difficult to punish if you don't have a high enough jump or good air speed. But if you want to avoid followups you can di out if the final hit gets you or you can sdi the intial hits. You can also crouch cancel it or shield it and then punish the end lag (this is very easy with his normal down b).
Nair is good, but it is also extremely committal. The hit is active for 28 frames which should give you more than enough time to punish it if you bait the move out. And nair only kills with the sweet spot, and the move itself has disjoints on the bottom, so you have to be careful. It doesn't beat out other disjoints though like Link/Tink uair or Marth Uair, so those characters (and many others) can freely juggle him with no worries since he's floaty.
It's not impossible to gimp his recovery, but it is tough when the luigi uses the dpad trick (which I don't see many using tbh aside from XYK; Dong, Eli, and I think Sago do not use it). Without it, it isn't too difficult to beat. You just have to be cautious of misfire, which can be beat by pretty much any hitbox since the misfire hitbox is on his neck, leaving his head exposed. I do agree with you that his recovery is a bit too good to be in 3.5 though (dpad or not), but you can say the same for characters like Peach, Mewtwo, Pikachu, etc. I do think dpad trick should be outright removed though; it's really stupid and doesn't take much effort to gain the height.
His aerials have little lag when l-cancelled, but they also have little range (aside from dair which is fine). He also has the worst aerial mobility in the game, which makes his aerials hard to connect properly on faster characters. He also has no real kill setups unless your opponent di's poorly (all his throws are pretty useless with down throw being the only decent one with improper DI, which with proper di, has next to no follow ups).
I think the only true jank he has is the indirect buff on down b and the 1/6 misfire, but that's really it.

 

[Life]

re: hurtbox viewer: Why not?...

 

[eideeiit]

re: hurtbox viewer: Why not?...

Doesn't even the current debug mode sometimes slow the game down? With hurtboxes we'd likely have a lagfest.

 

[Soft Serve]

Just make a alt color for everyone that is just the hurtboxes

 

[Foo]

Down b and side b are not like melee. Melee down b is no where near as good both horizontally or vertically, and side b can't sweetspot ledges in that game. It was in Brawl where side b could sweet spot ledges and down b could get ridiculous vertical height (he gets more height in that game btw).
I can agree with you with his current down b though, but only if he's using it with dpad because it makes the moves incredibly difficult to punish if you don't have a high enough jump or good air speed. But if you want to avoid followups you can di out if the final hit gets you or you can sdi the intial hits. You can also crouch cancel it or shield it and then punish the end lag (this is very easy with his normal down b).
Nair is good, but it is also extremely committal. The hit is active for 28 frames which should give you more than enough time to punish it if you bait the move out. And nair only kills if the sweet spot, and the move itself has disjoints on the bottom, so you have to be careful. It doesn't beat out other disjoints though like Link/Tink uair or Marth Uair, so those characters (and many others) can freely juggle him with no worries since he's floaty.
It's not impossible to gimp his recovery, but it is tough when the luigi uses the dpad trick (which I don't see many using tbh aside from XYK; Dong, Eli, and I think Sago do not use it). Without it, it isn't too difficult to beat. You just have to be cautious of misfire, which can be beat by pretty much any hitbox since the misfire hitbox is on his neck, leaving his head exposed. I do agree with you that his recovery is a bit too good to be in 3.5 though (dpad or not), but you can say the same for characters like Peach, Mewtwo, Pikachu, etc. I do think dpad trick should be outright removed though; it's really stupid and doesn't take much effort to gain the height.
His aerials have little lag when l-cancelled, but they also have little range (aside from dair which is fine). He also has the worst aerial mobility in the game, which makes his aerials hard to connect properly on faster characters. He also has no real kill setups unless your opponent di's poorly (all his throws are pretty useless with down throw being the only decent one with improper DI, which with proper di, has next to no follow ups).
I think the only true jank he has is the indirect buff on down b and the 1/6 misfire, but that's really it.

Jank doesn't equal overpowered. Luigi does have weaknesses which is why he isn't top tier, but he's still jank as all hell. I can't emphasize the difference between game design and balance enough. Things don't have to be overpowered to warrant a "nerf"

Also, I was referring to natural lag on his aerials. You can just keep throwing them out constantly in the air nonstop.

 

[Strong Badam]

re: hurtbox viewer: Why not?...

There's no real way to display the types of shapes that hurtboxes can be. The overlays we use for hitstun, armor, invincibility, intangibility, etc. are graphical overlays that apply to the entire character model, not their hurtbox. Hitboxes were possible to display as they're circular and we could repurpose the shield GFX for that; hurtboxes would need an easily manipulable 3D model, which unfortunately isn't really available.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

I'm going to be old before you f***ers realize that Smash has never been a game about normalization

Everyone needs their own personal ridiculous thing to be a) fun, b) competitive. Whether it's shines or slaps or tippers or healerbeams or ASC or QD or explosives or rest or shoryukens or knees or Thunderspikes or float cancels or teleports or mariodocfusion or farts or airdashes or missiles or Lucas or do you see where I'm going with this?

You minimize the obnoxiousness to within fairness, not take the obnoxiousness away entirely. Everyone is and should be obnoxious in their own special way. If there isn't someone out there salty about your character it's not well designed.

This is why I just sort of inwardly sigh at all the remove shine, nerf Falcon, zonks Luigi stuff. The game is about their stuff versus your stuff, it's not really about balancing the stuff. It's about seeing if tools violate the agreed upon rules of Smash with regards to: Does anything this character have invalidate movement or position, the cores of this game? Is advangate too easy to secure? Is disadvantage not easy enough to impose on this character? It's not about "Let's take away the jank that makes this character what it is"

FFS people get a grip

 

[Deleted member]

I'm going to be old before you f***ers realize that Smash has never been a game about normalization

i got old

normalization is dead

FFS = fox falco sheik, not "for ****s sake"

 

[Foo]

I'm going to be old before you f***ers realize that Smash has never been a game about normalization

Everyone needs their own personal ridiculous thing to be a) fun, b) competitive. Whether it's shines or slaps or tippers or healerbeams or ASC or QD or explosives or rest or shoryukens or knees or Thunderspikes or float cancels or teleports or mariodocfusion or farts or airdashes or missiles or Lucas or do you see where I'm going with this?

You minimize the obnoxiousness to within fairness, not take the obnoxiousness away entirely. Everyone is and should be obnoxious in their own special way. If there isn't someone out there salty about your character it's not well designed.

This is why I just sort of inwardly sigh at all the remove shine, nerf Falcon, zonks Luigi stuff. The game is about their stuff versus your stuff, it's not really about balancing the stuff. It's about seeing if tools violate the agreed upon rules of Smash with regards to: Does anything this character have invalidate movement or position, the cores of this game? Is advangate too easy to secure? Is disadvantage not easy enough to impose on this character? It's not about "Let's take away the jank that makes this character what it is"

FFS people get a grip

That's not the problem, the problem is consistency. That stuff gets removed from non melee high tiers ONLY.

 

[Mr.Pickle]

That's not the problem, the problem is consistency. That stuff gets removed from non melee high tiers ONLY.

Nah dude, fox got an up smash nerf remember. (Since it's the internet I'll spell it out and say I'm being sarcastic)

 

[mimgrim]

I think I've made it clear, and if not I am now, that the only "jank" I really dislike is Melee Shine. And that's because I think it crosses the line of obnoxiousness. Or rather, it is too obnoxious because of how ridiculously safe it is on top of the amount of rewards it gives, pressure it gives, and how versatile it is. I'd rather just see it flat out removes but I would also be fine if it just got made to come out 4-5 frames later (like Magnet). I don't really care about any other "jank".

:L

 

[TheGravyTrain]

Clearly the solution is to change any partial invincibility/intangibility into full body so we can see it in debug mode kappa

 

[Nausicaa]

what is this nonesense
Pikas uair ain't crap and he can't get in, Luigi has no approach or combos and can't finish, and Peach is slooo
They're designated baddies stahpit with this crazytalk you nerdz

 

[ChiePet]

Things that should come back due to Character Traits and creating a balanced but FUN game;
Pika's QAC [2]
MK's 3.0 DAir
Ness PK Fire activate on Sheild (im kidding, nooope)
Pit DTilt Start up frames and/or DThrow Angle (personally want NAir back to old Nair for Mix up game not combo game)
[Noting that it'd never be a thing to give pit back a Full Jump or any additional jumps out of Air Side B, wompwomp]
Diddy Dash Attack multi not single
ZSSamus Dash Cancelled Neutral B
Wario DSmash Tech time (prob not though)
Ice Climbers anything (Wobbling, CG Infinites, IDC, they're farthest from Melee as can be)
Link's Boomerang 'Flub' (come on.)
Revert Roy's FAir into DTilt combo from Melee back to normal; he's not marth.
Sonic JC Side B in Air.

These are just the minor things I felt were either not necessary to remove or miss enough to wish it wasn't gone. That's all D;

 

[Rizner]

I'm going to be old before you f***ers realize that Smash has never been a game about normalization

Everyone needs their own personal ridiculous thing to be a) fun, b) competitive. Whether it's shines or slaps or tippers or healerbeams or ASC or QD or explosives or rest or shoryukens or knees or Thunderspikes or float cancels or teleports or mariodocfusion or farts or airdashes or missiles or Lucas or do you see where I'm going with this?

You minimize the obnoxiousness to within fairness, not take the obnoxiousness away entirely. Everyone is and should be obnoxious in their own special way. If there isn't someone out there salty about your character it's not well designed.

This is why I just sort of inwardly sigh at all the remove shine, nerf Falcon, zonks Luigi stuff. The game is about their stuff versus your stuff, it's not really about balancing the stuff. It's about seeing if tools violate the agreed upon rules of Smash with regards to: Does anything this character have invalidate movement or position, the cores of this game? Is advangate too easy to secure? Is disadvantage not easy enough to impose on this character? It's not about "Let's take away the jank that makes this character what it is"

FFS people get a grip

That's what I didn't like about 3.5 - they removed some elements for balance or design on many characters without properly taking into account the fun associated with them. Then people get mad when many mains change characters or drop pm because they don't enjoy it, often blamed for quitting because their character is balanced and not op.
What the pmdt decide as smash rules is arbitrary, and then it seems that the rules made are then only applied to non melee vets.

I agree that you shouldn't sacrifice fun for balance and normalization. But at the same time if the game's direction goes to normalization and balance as the number 1 priority it shouldn't only be applied to new characters.

 

[Foo]

I agree that you shouldn't sacrifice fun for balance and normalization. But at the same time if the game's direction goes to normalization and balance as the number 1 priority it shouldn't only be applied to new characters.

There is a happy medium. You want to strike a balance between the two. However, whatever you decide that balance is, you should try to stick to it across the board.

@ ChiePet

I agree that some of those things should have been kept, just in a nerfed state. ZSS blaster didn't need to be a frame 1 cancel while being trancendent and electric, but it didn't need to be removed.

@ Nausicaa

They have weaknesses? Gasp. Guess falco is a designated baddy because he has a crap recovery. I mean, not every character can be fox and shiek, they're going to have weaknesses. (also, luigi has approach and combos wtf are you talking about)

 

[ChiePet]

I agree that some of those things should have been kept, just in a nerfed state. ZSS blaster didn't need to be a frame 1 cancel while being trancendent and electric, but it didn't need to be removed.

Exactly; toning down things, mostly the things that were just entirely removed, is fine. Toning down things that weren't already themselves busted that were not removed is just something else. I can't really get over missing Pit's FSmash [1] into DTilt, or Having a decent tool against spacies that certain other characters still have (DThrow angle and recovery speed), and I really don't believe in removing Pika's QAC2. And after his NAir nerf and combo route nerfs (like dash attack, UTilt x2-3, or DThrow into USmash, ect) he should have at least kept his boomerang's flub. [Link duh]

I am all for balance and consistency, but I feel there were just some pushes too big to characters that needed one, but not that hard. It's like the difference between a push and knocking them onto the ground.

 

[Daftatt]

That's not totally true, not every other character takes 80% in the air, and ROB's boost options while airborne can be covered depending on how he gets there

HA! that's a load of bologna. You can either cover above, left, or right when going after him in the air (boost higher, right, left), and you're committed to the choice while he's not. If you guess wrong he often can get back down safely. If you throw out some huge hitbox (G&W comes to mind here) to try and cover two options but those are often telegraphed and he could go option 3 and you'll be in endlag, though G&W I feel is a character with amazing tools against ROB in the air and could definitely cover more options than most, especially with up-B auto-fast falling.

He certainly isn't guaranteed a path down but his burst movement makes it a great deal easier than most characters.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

We aren't complaining about Mewtwo's get-out-of-juggles free tool because ...

 

[FreeGamer]

We aren't complaining about Mewtwo's get-out-of-juggles free tool because ...

It leaves him open and he's limited to using it once, which is child's play compared to ROB?

 

[Deleted member]

They have weaknesses? Gasp. Guess falco is a designated baddy because he has a crap recovery. I mean, not every character can be fox and shiek, they're going to have weaknesses. (also, luigi has approach and combos wtf are you talking about)

sheik has weaknesses, i just dont advertise them because i like winning

 

[PootisKonga]

sheik has weaknesses, i just dont advertise them because i like winning

Can you verify that two of her weaknesses are recovery sans Down B and range sans needles? Because I don't know much of anything else

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Can you verify that two of her weaknesses are recovery sans Down B and range sans needles? Because I don't know much of anything else

Actually it's **** aerial mobility and no easy way to come down (lolvanishendlag). She gets juggled absurdly hard.

 

[foxygrandpa]

Her poor aerial mobility makes her forced to play a heavy ground game (although RAR bair helps a lot with this) and she has a terrible recovery. She's also susceptible to dash dance abuse and CC but good sheik players can usually work around these.

 

[DrinkingFood]

It leaves him open and he's limited to using it once, which is child's play compared to ROB?

Except it moves him further, with invinc, in any direction?
To me, that's better than ROB's. ROB can't go down except the old fashioned way

HA! that's a load of bologna. You can either cover above, left, or right when going after him in the air (boost higher, right, left), and you're committed to the choice while he's not. If you guess wrong he often can get back down safely. If you throw out some huge hitbox (G&W comes to mind here) to try and cover two options but those are often telegraphed and he could go option 3 and you'll be in endlag, though G&W I feel is a character with amazing tools against ROB in the air and could definitely cover more options than most, especially with up-B auto-fast falling.
He certainly isn't guaranteed a path down but his burst movement makes it a great deal easier than most characters.

Boost up isn't a real option, it just gets him higher and wastes a boost when the goal is to get out of the juggle, not make it worse. The options depend on whether or not he has a jump, but my implication was that normally you can cover boost forward (toward the opponent) and no boost with the same attack. Which is true. If he has a jump tho, covering jump->boost is very hard. Without a jump, covering boost forward and no boost means boost away costs him a lot of stage space, perhaps even forcing him to go offstage with reduced recovery options. Remember that going to the ledge doesn't really gain him a whole lot, especially now with a 5 grab refresh limit on invinc.
But yeah, I said it was better for him then for most characters. I just think it's silly we're pretending like ROB is the only character that's difficult to kill or punish, or even that much more extreme.

 

[Mr.Pickle]

Mew2's up b and rob's side b is not a very a good comparison. They're similar, kind of, but mew2's up b is hands down better in a defensive situation.

 

[DrinkingFood]

But defensive situations are what we've been talking about. I'm not against changes to ROB, on the contrary I might like a faster falling ROB so people will stop ******** at me because they can't combo ROB as certain characters because they haven't actually spent hard lab time trying to figure it out, which you have to for ROB. I just want people (I mean lunchables) to stop pretending like ROB is some oddity as far as taking punishments go. He's not the only heavy floaty that drastically out punishes his opponents.

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

Nerf rob so hard, you can't tell if he is better than pit.

 

[Mr.Pickle]

He's fat and floaty, he's getting out of combos, side b or not. The only thing keeping him in some of them is his height....so idk what people expect here.