Aerial Waddle Dees

[yellowdee]

I've looked at a lot of matches involving Dedede players, and I noticed they never jump away from their opponents and throw out a Waddle Dee. I've found this to be incredibly useful, and have used it to counter even camping Falcos. You can go into another move more quickly in a midair toss, so you can rapid-fire the waddle dees. Playing games with the angle and timing, you can you can have two waddles be right next to each other as they hurtle towards the opponent. As long as you give yourself some space, you can nair, dair, and even inhale if your opponent tries to rush you. Additionally, you can zone out people's recovery options very easily with some preemptive "waddle wall" tosses. I'm thinking this is a cornerstone of DDD strategy, but I could be wrong. Can folks come up with matchup nuances where this wouldn't be appropriate? The only one I can think of might be against Ivysaur, since a crazy 7% can be recovered from a single hit against a waddle dee. Why didn't they nerf that?

 

[Captain Birdman]

Using Waddle Dees effectively can depend very much on the match up. For example, a fast character like Falcon can run under or jump over a misplaced toss, and from experience, Dedede can get hit pretty hard and often for missing a throw. However, I do agree that using Waddle Dees as a wall can be extremely useful, especially against characters with troublesome projectiles (aside from Ness and Ivysaur). Letting your little minions roam the map is a great way to provide extra approach options as well as set up mobile walls from things like Samus's missiles or Falco's laser spam. The trick is to get Waddle Dee to move with you.

It's not always advisable to waddle dash into your opponent considering all they have to do is throw out an attack to trade and possibly hit you. Your mix up often involves tossing it from where you stand without the waddle dash. The options you get include baiting a shield for a quick grab, tossing out an extra waddle dee or even attempting to reach with an F-tilt. Ground based waddle tosses are very important when it comes to spacing, and if you do it right you typically want something to lead into a grab. The mix up is mostly to help you build damage and to keep them from out predicting you when you want to waddle dash into a grab.

I like your idea of using waddle tosses in the air. I too think they could be effective (on paper at least). I'll have to experiment with this a little bit. It might make characters who like to approach with fast aerials a lot less scary. That's what I'm hoping for, anyways.

 

[G13_Flux]

the big thing about aerial waddle tosses is that the toss lasts for about 40 frames, as opposed to 63 frames on the ground. it is definitely MU dependent, because its definitely true that the high mobility characters (CF, ZSS, fox, wolf, etc.) can more easily take advantage of your committed position in the air, as well as possibly even attack through the waddle dees. this opens up where you implement mix ups from the air, however, to bait out things and punish.

but imo, aerial waddle tosses are a very good tool, and a big part of your camping game and your approach game. you can force opponents to attack and move at times which can open up some favorable space for you. a useful maneuver ive found is to tilt throw one angled downwards while slightly moving forward. upon landing you can waveland forward, backwards, or straight down in order to waddle toss forward, backwards, or in place. a preemptive attack from your opponent will obviously counter your waddle toss, but one mix up to that include jumping before hitting the ground to avoid the attack, and following up with a dair, inhale, other aerial, or simply FFing after the jump to land and grab. another mix up option would be to simply land after the aerial waddle throw, and shield. the waddle tosses out of a wavedash are remarkably good on shield (-4 at the worst, if the first active frame hits), which gives you time to spot dodge or run the other way. this means that the best counterplay to your waddle approaches is typically to attack preemptively, as you can effectively reduce your opponents defensive options if they decide to shield/jump/roll/spot dodge. as such, the example i gave above was based on this theory for counterplay.