after playing almost 400 online games ill give my thoughts
-the only buffs dk got were down b being faster and grounded up b being better and the roll. thats it
-everything else is a trade off, speed for less power and range, most notably fair and dair
-in some cases, there is flat out nerfs with no benefits whatsoever which for the life of me i cannot comprehend why DK would be nerfed. fsmash gap, downsmash hitbox, headbutt reducing knockback by 50%, punch taking an extra charge, cargo downthrow change
-its impossible to triple jump onto the stage without lag. the "perfect landing" still has lag thats easily punished
-his big frame does not come with the benefits they used to. his grab range isnt very impressive, and eveyone lives long anyway. so his weight doesnt seem as prominent. he constantly gets hit from jabs when the opponent is jabbing in the opposite direction
- i still cant believe they changed aerial cargo downthrow from the e3 demo to what it is now, lol, its so god damn lazy. they mustve thought it was too good (it sent them complelely downwards), so they changed the trajectory to horizonal.. but they didnt bother to change the animation. dk stil throws them down but they just go to the right or left.. looks stupid
-recovery is *** compared to half of the wall jumping/clinging cast. really pisses me off that mac who is supposed to be a jabroni in the air can jump off walls, but the king of the jungle cannot
- sdi nerfs hurts DK. all those characters with multi hit moves, yoshi bair dair, samus uair, etc all rack up damage big time now if you dont get out
what makes it worse, too many guys have too many things going for them. range, speed, power, superarmor, invincibility frames, small hurtboxes, projecticles... when i play robins, macs, zss and pits girlfriend i feel outclassed. mac literally has all of those except projectiles. and when he runs (and hes almost as fast as sonic btw) his hurtbox is smaller than olimar. and then he has a near 1 hit ko move. pits girlriend has insane range, very high run speed idk why, her fsmash for some reason is almost as strong as DKs, but is disjointed and even has a wind effect lol. robin literally has everything. counter moves are the most reliable way to kill now and that really sucks, too
dk will probably end up at the bottom of middle tier/top of low tier