Re: Falco Match-Up
I realize this is pretty far removed from the original discussion from a few weeks ago, but I think it's worth mentioning that I was able to find out a potentially game-breaking advantage against Falcos who like to make our lives difficult with his range-whoring reflector.
My fooling around recently yielded the discovery that any character the with capacity to crawl is able to execute their D-tilts while simultaneously holding an item (in Diddy's case, this will most often be his bananas). This is done simply by grabbing an item, lowering into a crouch, and sliding your directional stick forward or backward to initiate crawling movement in either direction. Once you're in motion, simply hit the attack button, and Diddy will do his D-tilt clap with a banana still in hand. If you don't have your joystick pushed far enough either to the left or right, you will end up throwing your banana down instead.
Back in March when Brawl was released, I played a ton of Sheik (I was a Marth main Sheik secondary back in Melee). This is around the time I noticed that Sheik could get underneath the reflector, approach and D-tilt, but most Falco players' use of the reflector against Sheiks seem to be pretty sparing at best since the needle storm doesn't quite instill the same fear that bananas do. That, and following up after executing Sheik's D-tilt sweep was near impossible. I discarded this strategy and haven't thought of anything since.
...until now. I never thought Diddy had the same ability to get underneath Falco's reflector (he doesn't get nearly as low to the ground as Sheik, Snake or ZSS do), but it never occurred to me that I should just try anyway. And try I did, and Diddy can indeed get underneath the reflector. Not only can you get underneath it, but you now have to distinct options for punishment: you can D-tilt repeatedly (since Diddy has arguably the most spammable D-tilt in the game) or, if you have a banana in hand, you can glide-toss out of the crawl and into or away from Falco without fear of the reflector. As long as the actual reflector hit-box is away from Falco, you can pound away at him all day with bananas. Wait too long though, and you'll end up eating a reflected banana - probably like we always do. =)
This eliminates one of Falco's two major advantages over Diddy in this match-up (the ranged reflector and the chain-throw). My roommate Max Power plays the best Falco in the state, and I just gave up on trying to win against him with Diddy for a stretch of two months until a couple of weeks ago; when I figured out that playing with no bananas actually yielded a lot more victories for me. This new tactic requires a bit more of experimenting, but that combined with my newfound lack of co-dependence on the banana rush has really opened up a slew of new possibilities for me in sidestepping Falco's ability to consistently shut down my offense.
Lemme know what you guys think.
EDIT: This isn't the greatest of news for victims of Falco's chain-throw, but I thought it was also worth mentioning. As we all know, it's pretty much impossible to DI or even smash DI (with C-stick assistance) out the chain-throw until around 40%, which is when Diddy starts to gain natural spacing due to increased knock-back anyway. However, it seems that starting around 20% (and possibly earlier), you can smash DI downward. The reason you would ever want to do this is because Falco players are often times not in position to reap the benefits of the maximum amount of D-throws they can execute, and often have to settle for an early D-air spike. So far, I've managed to avoid the spike almost every single time with a downward smash DI to grab the ledge and avoid the ever-******** gimp kill. Hope that helps out a bit.
Also for Diddy, don't forget that you can catch bananas risk free with DR.