Is Luigi's lack of traction a benefit?

[Kursed]

I just had this epiphany lately. During For Glory when I attempt to perfect shield from forward smashes from Captain Falcon or Ganondorf, it sends me back pretty far if the perfect shield does not work. This means I cannot punish. however, I get to sit back and begin to fireball space the game out again because they sent me back so far, and I will definitely not approach the other player with Luigi. Nope. So this requires them to approach me again either by rolling which is punishable by Down smash, or getting hit by a fireball or even possibly grabbed if they try to jump my fireball spacing. Hell, maybe I can even get an up-smash with Luigi's big head.

What do you say on this?

 

[Pyr]

I'd say that, for every cost (more things are safe on shield against Luigi then other members of the cast, punishing is harder), he has more then enough of a benefit. (walking down smash covering a ton of range, sliding up smashes, sliding reverse forward smashes)

 

[Deleted member]

Luigi's bad traction can be seen as a gift and a curse.

The gift is that it has Luigi be a bit more unpredictable with his movements and even give him more range. Luigi having a perfect pivoted forward smash gives Luigi a ton of range (he probably has the most distance from a perfect pivot in the game) on top of his powerful forward smash to boot. His sliding up smash can be unpredictable in that the opponent thinks they'll roll behind from a grab and then get hit by the back side of the up smash.

The curse is that a lot more moves are much more safe on shield. While his traction can help Luigi get out of certain situations, he'll slide and be unable to punish or get punished greatly (an example of this is a Ganondorf using a forward aerial, you slide off the stage, and then he proceeds with a down aerial). His traction is also one of the reasons why some match ups are against him; Little Mac's smash attacks aren't entirely safe on shield, but they are against Luigi because they'll push him away and he can't punish.

 

[veritron]

One thing to point out is that perfect shields are not difficult to get in this game, and perfect shields don't slide back. A little bit of practice and a little bit of getting a feel for your opponent and the traction is not a problem at all.