Sorry for the wall of text. Hey, all! I've played Waluigi about 15ish hours and I am ready for my first round of feedback. Keep in mind that I am no PM god and Waluigi has not been optimized in the slightest. I am going to be tough on Waluigi's kit, as I hope to see him tournament viable one day. First, I will be going overall his moves individually and my impressions on them and as I lab him I will be updating this comment with Waluigi's frame data.
Waluigi has potential. MK64DS was very clear in his post about the design he wants for Waluigi and I see if delivered clearly in this model of the character, to varying degrees of success. Overall, Waluigi plays a ground game, trying to bait his opponent of getting a raw attack. Then, translates that hit into weak aerial strings and a decent edgeguard.
Waluigi's air movement is BAD, but that's how MK64DS wanted it, so it's fine. The problem comes from the fact that Waluigi has bad air game in general. Some of the comes from the fact that his air movement is so slow, but his aerials don't really combo together. Again, I think this is how Waluigi was designed: to have a weak air game. Waluigi gains insane high just from doing his double jump. Coupled with his Up-B, Waluigi has crazy vertical reach.
This raises my first big concern: Waluigi can't SHFFL. This is quite the statement and immediately puts Waluigi at a huge disadvantage in the neutral game. I find it hard to imagine a Waluigi winning neutral against characters like Fox. Waluigi doesn't seem to have any good OoS options or options to deal with pressure. Dude's got a big hurtbox. Waluigi's slow flow speed (it feels almost as slow as Jigglypuff's) combined with his very high first jump and his general awkward aerials means he is best playing neutral on the ground. Unfortunately, his ground game seems average at best and doesn't make up for his poor aerial game.
Another problem I have is his special moves feel lackluster. They all have some really niche use, but are all burdened by a combination of lag, jankness, lack of utility, or uselessness. Special moves are where you put the creative touch on a character and let them feel unique. Some of the moves do scream Waluigi (almost literally) and others seem misplaced. To me, the don't really serve a purpose in neutral or punish either.
Anyway, that's my overview of Waluigi at the moment. Time for a move by move break down
Dash Attack: As with most dash attacks, it is a true combo into itself (Kappa). Dash Attacks are rarely an defining feature of a kit and Waluigi is no except. his dash attack is appropriately powerful, laggy, and with only a few follow up. The only thing I can offer as advice is maybe make him cover more ground with a DACUS. His Up-Smash is a good move and would buff Waluigi's ground game.
Jab: Waluigi's Jab seems perfectly fine. It's decently quick with good range and low damage, as is usual with jabs. Jab 1 can jab reset, which is important for every character to have. The endlag on both Jab 1 and 2 seems to be too long to do anything other than a grab after them. I feel this should be changed as it would open a lot of options for Waluigi for jab resets, shield pressure and combos.
U-Tilt: Seems like it's a good combo and juggle move, as with a lot of other up-tilts. It controls are pretty small space above Waluigi, but overall seems like a fine move.
F-Tilt: First of, good call out to Mario Tennis. As for the move, it's one of my favorite of Waluigi. It's mostly a spacing/pressure move and if you sweetspot it, it has good knockback on it. Hard to tell just got much stronger the sweet spot is. Maybe give it a decent amount of damage if you high with the tennisball hitting part? Overall I really like this move.
D-Tilt: Seems like a decent crouch cancel option. Pretty well spaced and pops people up for followups.
U-Smash: Big juicy hitbox on this move. 5 frame start up is pretty damn good and low end lag, too. This is a great move. As mentioned earlier, I think Waluigi could benefit from DACUS.
F-Smash: A bit slower from U-Smash on both startup and ending lag, though appropriately strong. Good horizontal KO. This is largely a read or edgeguarding move and could maybe do with some more setups built into his kit. I will get into that later.
D-Smash: This move is weird. It can edgeguard and kill pretty well. A bit laggy, but not every moves has to be fast. Sometimes when I use this move, confetti comes out. Explain.
N-Air: This is a good move with the potential to link together and fill Waluigi's otherwise empty neutral game. If you could SHFFL it, it'd be great.
U-Air: U-Air needs work. It looks like it should have a decent sweetspot, but as far as I can tell, it doesn't have one. t also doesn't deal that much damage. Again, it is fine to have kinda bad moves in a kit, but at least fix the sweetspot on this one.
F-Air: This move is good at edgeguarding and can link together. I've done Fair, then land on a platform, then fair jump fair for some serious percent. At first, I was off-put by the angle it knocks people, but I dig it now.
D-Air: Hands down my favorite Waluigi move. I love this. It's very fast, locks people into hitstun for a grab follo-up, helps you get down from the air. I love doing drop drown D-Air to lock people in hitbox as they fall, and sometimes you can even Up-B. I wanna get a tattoo of Waluigi's D-air on my butt. It seems like it is 80% of his air power budget XD.
B-Air: This move is very awkward to use, so I think it fits in the poor air game for Waluigi pretty well. It's not too slow, but has a limiting hitbox. It's Waluigi's best kill aerial, so I like this one.
Neutral-B: WAAAAAAH! I love this move just for the memeage. So for it's usage, I think Neutral-B, and all of Waluigi's specials, in fact, need some work. WAH has a windbox, so that's nice. It can create some Waluigi-specific high moments, which Waluigi seems to lack. My problem with this moves comes from the fact that it is very laggy ~17 frames of start-up lag followed by ~17 frames of end lag is kinda rough for a move that only stays out about 6 frames and has such a small range. This move has no use in neutral, combos, and only a little use in edgeguarding. I think this is one of those moves that can define Waluigi as more than just a lanky, grounded Wario. I have a few ideas on how to improve. Any combination of the following:
First, reduce the lag significantly and add a little damage to the uncharged WAH. If it has faster startup and endlag, this move would have a place in neutral and would make playing and fighting Waluigi feel unique. Someone is stepping to your hood? Washdash back and Wah, they take damage and are pushed back. It can serve as a space maker and neutral game reset button for someone who lacks a way to deal with rushdown.
Second, increase the knockback and range of the move. I think this should happen for sure. As it stands, it's difficult to use WAH even for edgeguarding someone who is in freefall
Third, make it larger and angleable. This is a bit out there, but f you are charging it, I think it'd be cool if you can move its hitbox to, say, be a downward curve WAH which causes people to be pushed downward.
These changes might be much, but as it stands, WAH is lackluster, and I'd love to see if take on a bigger role in his kit.
Up-B: First, I am going to talk about it's recovery potential. Coupled with his second jump, Waluigi has fantastic vertical recovery. While I haven't played against any people who edgeguard well, it seems like the Up-Bb hitbox is at least decent at protecting against gimps. Waluigi has bad aerial drift, so his overall recovery with his Up-B and Side-B is either entirely horizontal or vertical. Almost no diagonal. I see this as a deliberate balance decision, as being able to side b into up-b would give waluigi S-tier recovery, much like Luigi. Maybe look into enabling Side-B into Up-B to play up the Wario vs Waluigi and Mario vs Luigi thing, but it's acceptable the way it is. If you hit the whole Up-B, it's like 30%, it's crazy. I wish it had a strong last hit that shot the person directly up for sick kills of the top.
Side-B: Dude, this move is wacky and I love it. It currently seems to be one of Waluigi's few options in neutral. With start-up armor and fast hitboxes, it is a satisfying move to land that carries opponents for the duration and tethers you to the ledge for edgeguard followups. For follow-up dive thing is where I am concerned. First off, I am not sure if it's a meteor smash or a spike, but it should be a spike. If you hit this on someone in the air while they are off of the stage you deserve a stock. I also didn't test if rooted people take less knockback. While it's really cool and roots people, it is and kind of janky and inconsistent. I think it could use some slight tweaking and be a fine move, though. The recovery this move gives is pretty cool, albeit very linear. For a while I didn't think Waluigi had a good way of refreshing ledge invincibility, but then I figured you just let go of ledge and side-b again. Not bad.
Lots of different Down-Bs
Down-B: quick invincibility. Cool. I'd like if he could get the invincibilty while standing still though.
Down-B to B: Can be charged a little. I don't really see the point of it, though.Seems like you can go Down- BB into followup and that's about it. Kinda meh about this one.
Down-B to A: Does a cool scoot boot boogie and does a stomp which can meteor. Seems to be an option in neutral to catch people off guard and get some percent. This move is another missed opportunity I feel. If Waluigi had the option to do different moves out of the bootscootboogie, it would help his ground neutral game and be a slid opener. Something like DownBA to grad of Upsmash, I don't know.
Aerial B to B: At first I hated this move. The invincibility seemed insignificant and that hitbox for it is weird. I also didn't like how you scooted in the air, making it difficult to land and know where the opponent was going to be launched. I jut recently learned that you are suppose to jump up after someone, scoot into the postion that will have the desired knockback. Still though, this move doesn't seem to have many setup but maybe I am just dumb. I think the move should have a slightly higher angle. To get the juicy spike, you kinda have to be high in the air. I also thing that the hitbox should come from his feet, but that's just a preference. If the knockback was higher and the angle was just slightly more out, it could be a solid kill option and one of those high Waluigi moments.
Aerial B to A: I don't like this move at all. It is so lackluster. Someone explain it to me.
Grab range is fine. DThrow looks like it might be tech chaseable on certain characters at certain percents? I feel it should be tweaked for a techchase throw. Waluigi has a pretty good dash dance to take advantage of it.
UpThrow is for the juggles, BThrow is a kill throw.
I do think FThrow could be a fun throw where you can choose to toss them up, forward or down, like a tennis ball.
Sorry for the long post and the degradation of quality as it went on, I got tired. I am going to run it back really fast though with my final thoughs.
Waluigi has decent air moves but struggles to string them together due to his poor air speed, this is fine and help define him as a character
Waluigi has a good ground game with several good stand alone abilities. He is pretty quick on the ground, has a decent wavedash, dash dance, and crouch cancel.
Waluigi is lacking in the neutral game. Currently, he wants to fish for stray hit and see if he can do followups, which are okay at best. A lot of my purposed changes are aimed at giving him a better, more unique neutral.
When Waluigi gets in, he can do some work. His aerial reach is poor, but he can make do with his current move set. He kinda goes, dash dance around get a hit or grab, ground punish, they then go in the air, then air punish. Return to the ground and try for a ground finisher.
Waluigi has a good edgeguard game between his big hitboxes and WAH and is something that can be double upped on.
Waluigi's recovery is about average. He has good horizontal or vertical range on his recovery, though his Up-B sweetspot needs to be looked at. He can't sweetspot the ledge and frequently will be level with the ledge, but the latch on won't be out for like 11 frames after the last hitbox of Up-B.
His specials moves need the most work. Most of them need some form of tweaking to really give Waluigi that "I'm a Smash character" feel.
There is the potential to make a really unique, fun character here.
