Character Spotlight - Diddy Kong

Character Spotlight: Diddy Kong

Introduction: I am hoping to make this a series where I go over some useful information relating to certain characters. It’s not meant to be a guide where I go over their entire move-set, but more as a stepping-stone in learning some more about a certain character, and hopefully taking it to the next level. It might showcase some combos, play-style or just even ideas of what the character should do in the neutral-game. I decided to make this into a new thread since it's pretty large, and felt like it probably shouldn't go into his character discussion and clog it up.

Note: I’m going to assume you know what certain techs are, E.G. B-Reversals, DI, JC-Tossing, etc.

Overview: Diddy was seen as the best character in Smash 4, by a significant margin, shortly after release. His staple ‘hoo-hah’ combo (D-Throw>U-Air) killed incredibly early, and his F-Air and U-Air were notoriously hard to deal with. Since then however, he has been nerfed twice, but has received a few buffs/Quality of Life changes to compensate.

Pros:
Extremely good combo game
One of the best neutral-games around
Good frame data
Very dynamic (IE, you don’t have to do the same moves all the time as with other characters)
Many players don’t know how to deal with bananas
Highly mobile

Cons:
Loses solidly to several high tiers
Recovery can be exploitable
Can struggle to kill
Fairly weak gimping game
A ‘con’ for a lot of Diddy players, but not Diddy as a character, is they become very predictable

His game still largely revolves around his grab combos, not the least being his D-Throw>U-Air. He has the ability to play several different styles, such as controlled aggression, rush down, punish or even campy. His Down-B (banana) gives him Sheik like dominance over the neutral-game, due to the versatility and space that it controls.

Combos: Diddy is an S Tier character when it comes to combos, with only a handful of other characters being able to match him in this department. What separates Diddy, however, is how easy it is for him to set-up these combos and strings.

Your combo starter will almost always be either a banana-toss, or a D-Tilt. The reason for this is because they both lead into grab (albeit D-Tilt is usually only a pseudo-combo into grab). Let’s take a look at Diddy’s options from a grab at low %. Note that these combos are all true, but when they work largely depends on opposing character, DI, Rage and Staleness of moves.

D-Throw: Most people who are knew to Diddy will usually opt for the staple D-Throw>U-Air off of a grab. The problem with this is that after the U-Air, a second one is not guaranteed. Furthermore, if the opponent doesn’t air-dodge the second U-Air, or you read the air-dodge and hit them with another U-Air, it only adds up to 19%. 13% if you land only one U-Air. To put that in perspective, B-Throw does 12%, so that damage output is hardly impressive.

At very low percents, there are three combos you should be looking for out of a D-Throw. The choice is a matter of personal preference, rage, DI, and the floatiness/weight of your opponent.

D-Throw>D-Air: This is a true combo on most of the cast from 0-30% (significantly higher on heavies). If the opponent DI’s perfectly (behind you, and in the direction they’ve been thrown) it can be difficult to land the D-Air, since you need to turn around before doing the full-hop D-Air. It is still a true combo, however. The D-Throw>D-Air does 20%, but it sets up very nicely for more juggles. After you full-hop D-Air, if you then Fast-fall, you are generally in a 50-50 situation. The opponent can shield to stop you from hitting them with the follow-up combo U-Tilt>U-Tilt>U-Smash or U-Tilt>U-Tilt>U-Air>F-Air (U-Air>F-Air being the most optimal, leaving the opponent at 48% if you grabbed them at 0%). They can also shield the slightly quicker Jab (Rapid-Jab would leave them on 30%) and D-Tilt options (D-Tilt damage is too difficult to calculate since it varies heavily on DI and Weight). If they shield however, you can simply re-grab them into further combos, and if they spot-dodge, spamming U-Tilt, D-Tilt or Jab is almost certain to catch the spot-dodge. It’s important to remember that you don’t technically have anything guaranteed after the D-Air, but the risk/reward is very high since you end up in such a great situation. Note: To land the D-Air in this combo, you usually need to buffer the inputs.

D-Throw>Side-B>F-Air/U-Air: This is a pretty unique combo that works on most characters up to surprisingly high percents. You want to do a Short-hop after the D-Throw, immediately kick as you’re gaining height, and then finish with a U-Air or F-Air. After around 15% you’ll need to Full-hop instead of Short-hop. This combo takes some practice, and after your aerial it doesn’t have any follow-ups, but it does have very high damage output, with D-Throw>Side-B>F-Air capable of doing 31%. The Side-B is guaranteed for a very long time, which still does 21% after the D-Throw or 19% if you hit the weak spot. This works until roughly 75-80% (requires a double-jump at higher percents) on most mid-weights. This is also very useful for keeping your aerials fresh so that you can potentially kill with U-Throw>U-Air. It is the most damage you can get off a grab at high percents, unless you’re going for hard reads. Note: Remember to follow DI and use Full-hop when you need to. This works very well on BF because you can land on a platform and have more options than just F-Air/U-Air.

U-Throw>B-Air>B-Air: This is the easiest combo of the three, in my opinion. If both B-Air’s land, it does a nice 23%. The second B-Air isn’t guaranteed from a grab at 0%, albeit it still being difficult to avoid, it does become guaranteed at roughly 25% depending on the character. The key to this is doing a quick dash forward after the U-Throw, and then using both jumps. This will position you in a way that makes your first B-Air combo into your second one. Remember to fast-fall right after your second B-Air hits, so you can get more follow-ups with more B-Airs, F-Air, Re-grab, or Side-B. This works until roughly 50%, depending on Rage and character. Note: Don’t dash too far because if the opponent then DI’s away from you, you’ll only land one B-Air.

Kill Setups: Now we’re going to talk about kill setups. After a few nerfs to Diddy’s U-Air and F-Smash, Diddy players need to be a little more inventive when it comes to netting kills.

D-Tilt>U-Smash: This is a very useful setup. It’s mechanically easy to pull off, and D-Tilt is such a great move which makes the preparation also very easy. The kill percent varies greatly due to character weight, ceiling height and rage. Without rage however, expect this to kill at around 130% on mid-weights. You can also charge the U-Smash for a very short period of time and still land the combo.

D-Tilt>B-Air: This requires you to perform a RAR B-Air after the D-Tilt. This is only useful when the opponent is very close to the ledge. It won’t be killing anyone from center-stage. Like the aforementioned U-Smash setup, this should kill at around 125-130% near the edge of the stage. It can be preferable to U-Smash to catch DI, or if the stage has a high ceiling, or if you have a bit of rage.

D-Tilt>F-Air: Like the previous setup, this should only be done at high percents, when you and your opponent are right next to the ledge. This KO’s at around 135% without rage, and should be used over the B-Air combo if you don’t have enough space or time to perform a B-Air.

Banana: There’s a lot you can do with Diddy’s Down-B. This isn’t really a combo, more so just some things to remember when your opponent is at kill %. If you land a banana but aren’t close enough to F-Smash, try quickly foxtrotting forward and performing an F-Smash while they are still in their trip. This essentially allows you to kill confirm from a banana from up to half a stage-length away.
If you land a point-blank banana and your opponent is at an extremely high percent, remember to momentarily charge the F-Smash. This can often be the difference between a kill and your opponent surviving.
Want to be an absolute baller? If you land a banana from the distance you would usually dash grab them from, use UP-B instead, and hold diagonally down and into the direction you originally came from. This will cause your jetpacks to explode and also deal 5% damage to you. However, it also does some very nice knock-back, always as a heap of damage, and can net pretty early kills with some rage, especially from a distance where your follow-ups are usually limited. Plus, everyone will think you’re MVD.

Match-ups to avoid:
Now, thankfully Diddy has no unwinnable match-ups, but he does have some pretty tough ones, especially against certain top tiers. Here are some of his harder match-ups that you might consider using another character against. Honorable mentions to Ness, Villager, Pikachu, Mario and DK, who I believe all have good match-ups against Diddy.

Sheik: Pretty much everyone loses to Sheik, and Diddy is no exception. You both combo each-other extremely easily, but unfortunately, Diddy is gimp-fodder for Sheik. Diddy also doesn’t have a great combo-breaker like he used to, since the U-Air hit-box was nerfed. This can make it very difficult for him to land if Sheik starts juggling him. She has a neutral-game that is arguably better than Diddy’s (certainly better in this Match-up) and frame-data that makes her almost unpunishable if Diddy doesn’t have a banana in hand. Be intelligent with bananas because if she gets control of it, she can camp you for days with her needles. The Match-up is still winnable due to the potential kill-percent disparities, but against a high level Sheik, it’s going to be very tough.

Luigi: This Match-up requires an immense amount of work on Diddy’s behalf. Luigi’s bread-and-butter neutral-game (fireballs) beat out banana, and has extremely good reward on hit. Luigi has the best overall aerial frame-data in the game, and his frame 3 N-Air effectively nullifies Diddy’s greatest strength (his combo game), since N-Air breaks him out of so many would-be combos. Another issue Diddy faces is trying to exploit Luigi’s typical weaknesses. Sadly, Diddy cannot exploit Luigi’s recovery well enough to gain an edge in this Match-up. Luigi simply out-boxes, out-combos and out-kills Diddy in this Match-up. The icing-on-the-cake for Luigi is that he can often be hit by a banana toss but inadvertently avoid follow-up due to how far he slides from the banana. The only saving-grace for Diddy in this Match-up is F-Air. He walls out virtually all of Luigi’s options, if spaced perfectly. A well-timed powershield or fireball will still beat it, however. Try to avoid getting inside Luigi and utilize peanuts, bananas and F-Airs in a defensive play-style. Side-B Kick also beats fireballs, and is very good in this Match-up.

Rosalina: Pre-nerf Diddy was considered a counter to Rosalina. Not anymore. Rosalina inherently gives Diddy trouble due to Luma mindlessly blocking all banana approaches, and this issue is more evident now that Diddy can’t kill-confirm Rosalina off a grab at 75%. U-Smash is a great kill move in this Match-up for Diddy, since his other kill moves can be difficult to land against Rosalina. Try to utilize U-Tilt>U-Smash when you’re looking for the kill, while trying to keep Luma dead with Side-B kick. Remember to recovery extremely intelligently and with a lot of mix-ups, so as to avoid Rosalina U-Air and D-Air which can both often lead to KO’s. Do not be predictable with banana-toss, as her gravity pull will instantly take control of it. Try to JC-toss it up or even backwards to try and bait out gravity pull, and then punish it accordingly.

Conclusion: Diddy is still a terrific character, even after his numerous nerfs. He is, in my opinion, still solo-main viable and has a massive amount of depth as a character. He is entertaining to watch/play and has, overall, an excellent Match-up chart with the Smash 4 roster. Thanks for reading. Any feedback or advice for future spotlights would be greatly appreciated. Cheers.

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Jezmo 08/28/2015 03:36:44