King K. Rool’s Biggest Strengths

[Kold Pizza]

Greetings everyone! As a person who mains King K. Rool, I do realize the Croc King himself has glaring flaws, but I shall remain positive and talk about his biggest strengths.

- K. Rool’s survivability is his arguably his biggest strength, even though he can be easily combo’d, he can at numerous times survive in the battlefield while taking over 200% damage.
- K. Rool has good options for KO’s; K. Rool’s moves which are KO confirms are among the most powerful in the game.
- K. Rool’s belly armor, while it has its ups and downs, can be beneficial too if used wisely.
- K. Rool has a good projectile game, and considering he’s a superheavy, that’s a unique trait to have; you just have to time the moves right and not be too predictable to your opponent.
- K. Rool’s down throw is very beneficial, especially when your opponent is at least at 126% and doing the down throw with an immediate down smash is such a huge positive to keep him viable in battle.
- His propeller recovery can be useful if done at certain angles where you can avoid being hit by your opponent.
- His down special is also helpful if timed correctly, it’s certainly useful when used as a reflection against characters with projectiles and useful as a counter against characters that fight close up.
- His spikes are amazing to look at when perfected right.

Remember to stay positive if you are having trouble. I know it sounds cliche, but never give up the battle. The Kremling King plays differently at certain match-ups. Hopefully they fix his lag in the next patch. From there, things will go much smoother.

 

[G-Guy]

Finally a thread dedicated to positivity!

His biggest strength for me is that he is just so much fun to Play!
I have never felt this way towards any other smash character (mainly because I have been waiting for him since melee)

Even though his moves are laggy, stuff like dair, Usmash, ftilt and especially bair are super fun and satisfying to use.



Good god i love Bair...

 

[Deleted member]

Even from the first moment I've seen him I knew he was a permanent main for me. As in I'll always use him!

Great character and just a blast and amazing heavyweight for sure!

 

[THE SLOTH]

I appreciate a thread about the king that isn't just lamenting what he lacks for once, so kudos to you for starting up one proper.

Despite his flaws, something about K. Rool is just fun to me. Playing as him is more enjoyable than playing other super heavies, and I generally enjoy the character archetype as a whole. He has moves like back air, up air, down tilt, and up smash that are just super satisfying to hit and pay off pretty well if you can land them, and his gimmick of having a layer of super armor to body through the attacks of characters that would usually make a heavy into combo food is a really great idea. Even if K. Rool works better on paper than in practice, I really like the ideas they were going for with him, and hope maybe some buffs in the future can make his play style pan out into something more viable. Although, even if that never comes to pass, I don't see myself dropping K. Rool any time soon, just from how satisfying it is to play him.

 

[Kold Pizza]

Indeed, K. Rool is so fun to play as!

What other superheavy uses a crown or a blunderbuss.

He has not one, but two amazing spike moves.

With the right mindset, he is still competitive online. A dedicated K. Rool main can manage around any setback.

They just need to fix some of his glaring flaws so playing in competitive Smash can feel like less of an uphill battle. I have faith that the Smash Team devs will do the right thing and fix his lags, especially aerial lags and landing lags. Also, they should increase his hitboxes for certain moves like his dash attack, forward smash, and up aerial; also they should decrease his hurtbox. They should also increase his mobility. Since the devs have put a dedicated effort in this Smash game much more than the previous one, I am hopeful.

 

[whitesnake]

He is quite good at chasing opponents offstage and spiking or gimping

His aerials have big hitboxes... bair and dair can spike.. nair comes out very quickly

and his recovery is so long that he can chase guys way offstage and still make it back

 

[Handy Man]

Here are what I think his biggest strengths are:

- I definitely agree with his survivability. As you can see here, I managed to survive a Bowser side B at the top of Battlefield at 162%. Most characters would love to be able to survive for that long, although that particular example is a bit extreme. It's also nice knowing that moves that may kill other characters around 110% can be DI'd and survived by King K. Rool.

- Something else I love is the ability to escape juggles, like with Palutena's up-air. People that may not know better may heavily rely on up-air combos to do damage, and King K. Rool is able to either nair or counter out of strings like that. Most heavies are trapped and have to endure the juggling. It's worht keeping in mind that there may be too much hitstun and too little knockback to escape some strings and combos, but the fact that we have a way of escaping such situations at all is amazing.

- Forward tilt is one of my favorite moves of his, I find it pretty spammable. It takes a hit with the armor on startup, can kill, and is his best ranged attack besides his projectiles. The only clear weakness this move has is that it can be grabbed on its startup. If you need a move besides counter to feed off aggressive play, this is it in my opinion.

- His throw game is pretty usable. Up throw can do a whooping 20% each time its used, back throw can kill near the ledge around 130%, and forward throw has two good applications; it can either lead to a raw dash attack at low percents, doing a combined 30%, or it can lead into a followup RAR backair near the ledge. The down throw is good as well, but only at high percents. It can either be a solid confirm option if the opponent keeps mashing, or a mindgame tool if the opponent plays around the burying. Either way, I find all four of his throws to be useful for various reasons, my favorites being up and down throw.

- His counter reflecting can be very useful against characters like Samus, Hero, and Ness, who may rely a lot on projectiles for their neutral. It can be hard to get in against zoners with King K. Rool, but the fact that we can challenge and threaten their neutral is very useful.

- Nair is all around a very good move. For instances where it could be hard to land a back air or down air meteor, nair can eat up certain mutlihit moves and knock them away. Certain examples include Mario's up-b, Roy's up-b, and even the King K. Rool ditto against the propeller up-b. King K. Rool's nair is both a good offensive move and defensive move, and it's worth practicing all of its applications. My only complaint with the move is that it has endlag upon landing, making it punishable on shield.

With everything said above, I have to disagree with OP on a couple of things. One, the propeller is not a good recovery. Many characters can challenge the blade, either directly like Joker and Yoshi, or with projectiles, like Peach's turnips or Ness's PK Thunder. It's also very easy to hit King K. Rool from the side if the character has a good air speed and forward or back aerial. The propeller has its uses, but it forces King K. Rool to recover low and to be ready for teching edgeguard attempts.

I also disagree that his projectile game is amazing; it is pretty good, but both projectiles should largely be used to create pressure or condition opponents to respond in a certain way, like jumping or shielding. Too many high tier characters, like Peach and Chrom, can just hop over the crown toss and punish King K. Rool while he's in endlag. The projectiles are good and can be useful, but they are not even close to the best that King K. Rool has to offer; there's too much commitment for both projectiles to be reliable.

 

[UserKev]

K Rool defines heavyweights in Smash, he doesn't need to be inherently good. He's a laughter to play as and feels invincible.

 

[Kold Pizza]

Yeah.

Though K. Rool has a solid projectile game, I wouldn’t consider it his biggest positive, just a solid positive. It’s quite a challenge to use the projectiles against certain opponents that are top tier. His propeller; it’s a drag using it to recover when certain characters with certain projectiles edge guard you. I can see where others are coming from when looking at it all competitively.

I would say right now his biggest positives are survivability, his throws (especially up throw for damage pile-up and down throw along with forward smash or down smash for KO confirm after opponent’s damage is 126%), his down aerial and back aerial, how fun he is as a character, and his facial expressions that indeed give good laughs.

 

[Kold Pizza]

After the recent patch, I would say K. Rool’s blunderbuss has become a bigger positive. Even though in certain match-ups, some of the more quicker opponents will go over where you are intending to aim it and still give you a difficult time; the blunderbuss has become more of a solid option at least.

His neutral aerial has become such a big positive now it’s amazing what one patch could do. Another growing positive is his up aerial.

 

[Kulty]

Kold Pizza kudos to you for starting a positive thread. If you want my opinion on K Rool's strenghts, here's how I would describe:

• HE'S A THICC BOI. But in all seriousness, he is the second heaviest character in the game. That basically means that you can take a lot more hits than your average character and you can survive a lot longer compared to a majority of the cast. Despite him being combo food, his survivability is among his biggest strengths. His weight combined with a good RECOVERY DISTANCE (not recovery as a whole, bc it's sadly exploitable) makes K Rool having one of, if not, the best survivability in the game especially with good DI. When that finisher zoom appears, you're going to live most of the time and you're gonna say <<WE LIVIN'>>.
• Just like any super heavyweight character, you possess one of the most powerful toolkits in the game in terms of damage of knockback. You only need to win a few neutral exchanges to gain a lead against your opponent, and your moves kill incredibly early. Combined with dthrow, K Rool does have amazing kill confirms against the whole entire cast unless if they have good mashing skills against Piledriver (dthrow).
• Despite him having a bad disadvantage state, unlike the other heavies, K Rool has options to escape juggles situations with the help of his Belly Armor. This is something that I hate with heavies in general is that once you're put in disadvantage, you have no way to come back to neutral state against a really good opponent who knows how to cover all of your escape options, which can be very frustrating. Luckily, K Rool does somewhat mitigate this problem. Therefore, if someone tries to punish your landing, just Nair and most of the time, you'll get away with it. Belly Armor, as a whole, is a very unique and interesting mechanic that allows K Rool to beat some moves that he cannot really beat normally.
• He has a very interesting projectile game. Tbh (and that's personal bias), I've always disliked playing zoners that rely heavily on spamming projectiles and force the game. It's incredibly boring and you have no satisfaction playing that kind of character. K Rool's Krown and Blunderbuss, however, don't make me feel that way. Sure, they can be used to zone out opponents, but I find their usage to be very interesting. Krown and Blunderbuss are ''poking'' projectiles that help condition your opponents to play a certain way against you, or to identify their habits.
• He's arguably the most versatile super heavy in the game. K Rool is played as a bait and switch playstyle, meaning that he has no problem to play both aggressively and defensively. He can change his gameplan on the fly with no problem. While I personally think defensive K Rool is the most optimal, switching between both kinds or a mix of both can lead to K Rool having some decent mixup options in neutral. The trick to achieve that playstyle is to play King K Rool like a ''boss character'' as quoted by DarkSparkksGaming. Bosses in gaming like to switch their tactics a lot and mix up the timing of delivering attacks to the opposing player, and it very much so fitspersonality. Whenever something doesn't work, K Rool always make sure to come up with a new plan to succeed, and that's your key mentality and mindset that you need to have as aplayer.
• Last, but not least, he's arguably the most well animated character in the game and one of the most satisfying character to win with in the game. Back Air is hype inducing. He may not have much combos, but his strings are incredibly satisfying and deadly if landed correctly. His animations are goofy and so well animated, and it's very hard for me not to smile when playing the character. He's definitely my favorite character in the entire Super Smash Bros franchise. I may love and I still have fun playing him, but K Rool is just so fun that I just want to stick to him and not switch to anyone else besides Mario personally. It can be frustrating to be a K Rool player at times (not gonna go further than that), but winning with him feels extremely rewarding and worth the effort.

 

[Kold Pizza]

It’s amazing how useful all of K. Rool’s aerials have become now, he’s come a long way.

My hope now is that they can fix his forward smash and up smash, that would be tremendous for King K. Rool as well as more mobility and a better out of shield option.

Now that developers have started to truly take notice of what improvements King K. Rool needs, I am more hopeful than ever when future patches arrive.

 

[Kold Pizza]

King K. Rool has come a long way since I made this thread. He got even more buffs in the recent patch.

 

[Kold Pizza]

A good K. Rool player can compete with anyone regardless of what tier the each character is at. Also, while King K. Rool has improved over the last several patches he may not be considered top tier, but that's okay because it doesn't matter to me. It is dedication that matters most. I think it is important to utilize his strengths and minimize the weaknesses he has.

 

[StrangeKitten]

I find him to be a strong pick in a free-for-all setting. He's not as exploitable when your friends will also get distracted fighting each other, Blunderbuss will make waves and becomes a pretty good camping tool when multiple opponents are tasked with dodging it, he has high damage output and kill power which is stronger in a FFA format imo, and Bowser's survivability backed by an even further-traveling recovery (which, again, less exploitable when your opponent is busy fighting other people and might not be focusing on you). Winning is easy when you can outlast everyone so well, and don't have to commit to joining the fray thanks to projectiles.

The same unfortunately can't be said of his performance in a singles setting, but I'd rather not dwell on his negatives since others here are tired of that.

I love his nair. Regardless of singles or a FFA, it's a stellar edgeguarding tool thanks to its armor and long-lasting hitbox. He's probably the only character in the game who is good at challenging Marth and Lucina's recoveries thanks to this move.

 

[mynameisBlade]

When me and my buds 3 way FFA, K. Rool never lets me down. The suck n cuck handles both people majority of the times its used.

 

[Kold Pizza]

Yeah, I love his neutral B! It’s always one of my go to moves as it pertains to King K. Rool.