Diddy Kong Secondary

[Shady Shaymin]

Greetings, fellow primates. As a player who benefits heavily from having a secondary to pull out in certain scenarios, I've been thinking about who to learn to accompany diddy.

After a little over a month of playing diddy, though, I've come to realize that diddy doesn't necessarily struggle in actual character matchups, but he has very uncomfortable positions that become more problematic against certain playstyles and characters. These situations are

A) offstage moments where characters with strong projectiles and the ability to go deep and press buttons (pikachu, viallager, mario to an extent) can severely limit his options for returning
B) matchups that force him to play the neutral more patiently than his typical rushdown style by effectively zoning or camping (rosa, pac, villager)
C) kill percents when smart shielding can shut down the banana and make closing a stock more stressful

Of course, there is counterplay to all three of these. Recovery can be mixed up or helped with certain stages, smart usage of shield/spot dodge/sidestep/short hop with approaching can help break past the zone, and proper conditioning/mixups make bananas more deadly. Even so, a competent opponent utilizes their counter-counter play mindgames to put you in these undesirable situations anyway.

With all this in mind, mewtwo seemed like a good option for a secondary. His un-gimpable teleport, strong reflector, and godly kill throw basically cover diddy's weaknesses. Do you guys have any secondaries, if so, who and why?

 

[ArikadoSD]

I feel like diddy is a super viable solo-main but sometimes the rosa mu makes me double think that lol. That mu is so ****ing bad.

That being said I feel like the 3 points you mentioned aren't entirely true, at least the latter two points, cuz I agree with the first one. I don't think that matchups that force Diddy to change his playstyle are inherently bad, that's just the case with a lot of matchups tbh. Tho rosa IS a bad matchup.

As for the third point, Diddy is the furthest character from losing to shields. He has a potent kill throw and amazing grab game, not to mention banana and dtilt are amazing at pressuring shields, and he gets so much off grabs and stage positioning in general. You could get a grab, get stage positioning and then punish their landings with a banana into a kill confirm, etc.

The perfect secondary for Diddy tbh is probably easily Cloud. Has a decent matchup against Rosa and does pretty well against all matchups a lot of diddy think are questionable (olimar, mega man, villager, mario/luigi).

 

[Pazx]

Ari nailed it, imo the best secondary for us is either Cloud or someone who does particularly well against a matchup you struggle in.

In the past I've used Ness/Luigi for Fox and MK for Rosa but at the moment I'm trying out the whole solo-main thing and it appears to be going relatively well for me.

 

[Lylo]

Remind me the days where people were saying Sheik is good secondary for Diddy...

Well, honest question, we could go main Cloud instead no? I have a feeling Cloud is better at every MU

 

[Shady Shaymin]

I feel like diddy is a super viable solo-main but sometimes the rosa mu makes me double think that lol. That mu is so ****ing bad.

That being said I feel like the 3 points you mentioned aren't entirely true, at least the latter two points, cuz I agree with the first one. I don't think that matchups that force Diddy to change his playstyle are inherently bad, that's just the case with a lot of matchups tbh. Tho rosa IS a bad matchup.

As for the third point, Diddy is the furthest character from losing to shields. He has a potent kill throw and amazing grab game, not to mention banana and dtilt are amazing at pressuring shields, and he gets so much off grabs and stage positioning in general. You could get a grab, get stage positioning and then punish their landings with a banana into a kill confirm, etc.

The perfect secondary for Diddy tbh is probably easily Cloud. Has a decent matchup against Rosa and does pretty well against all matchups a lot of diddy think are questionable (olimar, mega man, villager, mario/luigi).

Very helpful input. I know very well that diddy has a deadly grab game, just didn't know he actually had a reliable kill throw. Cloud sounds like a solid secondary in many regards, but suffers similar problems in the offstage department and that is kind of a deal breaker, for me at least.

Remind me the days where people were saying Sheik is good secondary for Diddy...

Well, honest question, we could go main Cloud instead no? I have a feeling Cloud is better at every MU

That's my issue with pocketing someone better than my main. It starts to beg the question, "why not dedicate this pocket as a main if they're that good?"

I'll probably end up picking up mewtwo. They share things like conversions off of down tilt, safe aerials, but complement each other's weaknesses just enough to have good dual main synergy imo

 

[ArikadoSD]

Remind me the days where people were saying Sheik is good secondary for Diddy...

Well, honest question, we could go main Cloud instead no? I have a feeling Cloud is better at every MU

lol yeah that's the problem. Cloud is p much the perfect secondary for literally anyone with a bad matchup to the point where if u pocket cloud u might as well main him tbh

but still, I'd use diddy in all matchups except rosa tbh. i'd use cloud in that mu.

 

[FUEGO!]

It is very possible to Solo main him in the current meta, what with many claiming he's Bayo's worst match-up. Probably the very least, keeping pocket Cloud for just the Rosa match-up could be fine, otherwise I'd just power through the others.

 

[Pazx]

Diddy is definitely solo-viable and I think it's likely he does better than the rest of the cast including Cloud against Sheik, ZSS and Bayonetta in particular, those three MUs and the frequency of which they occur is more than enough reason to not just main Cloud. I've heard Cloud kinda bodies ZSS though so that MU in particular might not be a point in our favour, but w/e, Diddy is cool and we still win that matchup.

Shady raised a good point, if you're not picking up a secondary for a specific MU then you should probably pick someone who has different weaknesses to Diddy, in other words somebody with a good recovery.

 

[Deleted member]

I use for MUs, which is an annoying MU for .