Luigi (SSBM): Difference between revisions

While Luigi initially has the appearance of being a clone to his older brother Mario, similar to {{SSBM|Dr. Mario}}, Luigi is a [[clone|semi-clone]] of Mario, primarily due to differences between their ground and aerial attacks, unique moves to Luigi, and a variety of different properties between special moves. Luigi's attributes can also wildly vary from Mario's; Luigi's air speed, dashing speed, and traction are among the lowest in the game, wheras Mario's are about average; to support the idea that the two aren't completely alike, Luigi's jumping prowess is higher than Mario's, further differentiating him from Mario. As a result of these varied attributes, Luigi has the longest and fastest wavedash in the game.

Luigi's primary advantage in this regard is his impressive ground approach. Luigi's wavedash is highly conducive to assisting in approaching enemies due to its high speed, and a variety of powerful smash attacks on the ground makes Luigi amongst the best wavesmashers in the game. His forward smash has extremely high knockback scaling (135; the highest in the game), making it a highly effectively KOing move, and his down smash can act as both a combo starter due to its upward knockback, as a combo finisher/restarter, or, at high percentages, as a KOing move.  

Luigi also has a variety of powerful attacks in his arsenal. In addition to his powerful forward smash, Luigi's aerial attacks can also wreak havoc onto opponents; his neutral aerial has high, upward knockback, and his forward aerial is fast, has almost no lag, and has high knockback, making it a useful attack both for KOing and edgeguarding. In addition to these, Luigi's down aerial is among the most flexible edgeguarding attacks in the game; in addition to meteor smash properties, its sourspot has high, horizontal knockback, making it a good choice to force opponents off the stage as well. Luigi's side and up special moves can also act as powerful finishers, particularly if the side misfires and if the up special sweetspots.

Luigi's grab game is also good. Although his grab range is merely average, it is much longer than Mario's and his aforementioned long wavedash serves as a wonderful way Luigi can extend its reach. His throw have many varied uses. While his down throw is situational at best, his forward throw can set up a variety of edgeguards. His up throw combos directly into down smash and is a viable chain grab on fast-fallers at low percentages. It can also combo into an aerial attack should opponents DI. His back throw is possibly his best, with the ability to set up edgeguards at low percentages, and the ability to give almost guaranteed KOs at high percentages.  

Luigi's strange variety of attributes, however, acts as a double-edged sword. Despite a highly effective wavedash, Luigi's approach without wavedashing is poor, as his low traction leads to a variety of long pauses where he cannot easily counterattack. Additionally, Luigi lacks a particularly useful projectile for use on the ground; his [[Fireball]]s have low hitstun and non-stellar range, making them less useful than others in the game. In addition, Luigi's air game, despite his powerful aerials, lacks much need synergy with his stellar ground movement due to his low air speed. A very high short up and a low falling speed also gives Luigi among the worst SHFFLs in the game, even with his low-lag aerials.

Luigi also suffers from a poor recovery. While his two primary recovery moves, [[Super Jump Punch]] and [[Green Missile]] have long range, they are extremely linear in trajectory; Super Jump Punch does not move Luigi horizontally and Green Missile must be charged to give significant distance. Furthermore, the latter has a fairly long cool down animation in the air, which may cause Super Jump Punch to fall short of reach for the ledge. These can be complemented with the [[Luigi Cyclone]], which however has limited use if the player is unable to perform extreme [[button mashing]].

Luigi also suffers from being a character that relies heavily on situational attacks and technical gameplay; a majority of Luigi's attacks have to timed properly with a wavedash to be at their most effective, and missing an aerial or improperly timing a down smash can lead to punishment from opponents. Additionally, Luigi is over-reliant on wavedashing; a highly effective Luigi player must have perfect control over his wavedash distance. Using a long wavedash serves him little good up close offensively, and a short wavedash hampers safe retreat. Furthermore, missing the wavedash completely often leads to cruel punishment.