Kong Kollege: Diddy Kong Tactical Discussion

[Melomaniacal]

Bnb combos anyone?

Uh... nair -> things, possibly more nairs.
I find that Diddy's moveset allows for a lot of jab reset opportunities. Nair -> dair, or even dair -> dair often catches the opponent off guard and they miss the tech.

 

[Tero.]

I don't know what to do when playing Diddy.
Somebody tell me!

 

[ELI-mination]

I don't know what to do when playing Diddy.
Somebody tell me!

Playing AS Diddy, or playing AGAINST Diddy?
Also, depends on matchup.

 

[Melomaniacal]

I don't know what to do when playing Diddy.
Somebody tell me!

Really, I think Diddy's mobility is key. Take advantage of his dash speed/dash dance, it makes avoiding approaches and punishing pretty easy.
Never underestimate nair. That thing is pretty damn safe and starts combos. Get used to doing late nair on shield to triple jab combo. It's good shield pressure and catches people off guard.
Know when to use forward B, because that move is unreal. It's unbelievably good, but you can't just spam it because it gets punished if you whiff.
Know your out of shield options. Bair, nair, and up B are all good depending on the position and percentage.
Don't overestimate bananas. They are good for controlling space, but overcommitment to them will just get you messed up by anyone who knows what they are doing.

 

[jalued]

OK I now have some diddy experience.

First of all I would like to say that diddy is an awesome character with alot of potential.

I was playing against ZSS for the entire night so me and my mate know the matchup and think it's around 60-40 in diddy's favour... or it would be if I knew how the hell you should edge guard her. Her recovery is massive, she can reuse her down B after being hit and once she tethers I have no idea how to punish.

Help?

 

[tripwire]

Sweet spot Fair. Dair. Up throw.Punish whiffed throws with Fsmash. Peanut. My friend also mains her and killing her isn't always easy.

 

[ELI-mination]

OK I now have some diddy experience.

First of all I would like to say that diddy is an awesome character with alot of potential.

I was playing against ZSS for the entire night so me and my mate know the matchup and think it's around 60-40 in diddy's favour... or it would be if I knew how the hell you should edge guard her. Her recovery is massive, she can reuse her down B after being hit and once she tethers I have no idea how to punish.

Help?

When she's coming back to the stage, make sure you have a banana in hand. Then jump out and throw it downward to setup a block against her tether while you jump out looking to either fair or side-b. Diddy can jump out pretty far and be safe because of how much distance he gets with his up-b recovery, which can also be used as a last resort edgeguarding option itself.

 

[DiSQO_BuNNY]

OK I now have some diddy experience.

First of all I would like to say that diddy is an awesome character with alot of potential.

I was playing against ZSS for the entire night so me and my mate know the matchup and think it's around 60-40 in diddy's favour... or it would be if I knew how the hell you should edge guard her. Her recovery is massive, she can reuse her down B after being hit and once she tethers I have no idea how to punish.

Help?

There are frames where tether chars are vulnerable until they actually touch the ledge. Spike dat ho

 

[Brikmaethor]

It seems that waiting with Up B right against the ledge might be a very strong option against tether characters, perhaps some other recoveries as well. I'm going to try that against an Ivysaur this weekend and see if it gets me anywhere.

 

[SpiderMad]

RIP super crazy b-DACUS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=k5sJ27yJ5x4#t=359s

Also I was looking at Diddy's hitboxes in BBox (planned to .gif a few but my Camtasia is having problems), Up-air indeed is like Ganon's but no where close in terms of how far is does reach behind him, and then other than that nothing too out of the ordinary for his moves besides his Dair being bigger than his own body size. I couldn't find the ground invincibility frames I was searching for on grounded Up-b, or it I could have been that I only could find the aerial animation for the up-b release: so I don't know. I'm actually pretty sure I just couldn't find the grounded Up-b release for some reason.

 

[G13_Flux]

is there any advantage to even using glide tosses with diddy? like i feel that a WD > bannana throw is just far superior in general and u actually have the flexibility with it that glide tossing had in brawl. plus u can do it OOS. seriously, i feel that glide tossing in PM is just horribly inferior. AGT on the other hand is beast.

 

[SpiderMad]

I feel Glide tossing to be the same, and I think you can do all the same stuff: so idk what you mean. That's a nifty thing to know but wavedashing gives you 10 frames of animation for the special fall landing before you can throw the banana where with a glide toss it should be instant like AGT is. I also thought you could glide toss OOS somehow

 

[onionchowder]

Diddy feels incredibly slippery. I find myself accidentally sliding off platforms or moving too far a lot. I feel like a monkey ought to have better traction.

 

[SpiderMad]

Diddy feels incredibly slippery. I find myself accidentally sliding off platforms or moving too far a lot. I feel like a monkey ought to have better traction.

What? No! He feels fantastico, the slip is good for like all of his stuff.

Other news:
-Making a few diddy textures with the P:M logo on back of shirt/hat for the heck of it (I also want to make one with no shirt but robot legs)
- Diddy can SH AC everything but Dair, and can SH Bair to anything but Dair. SH Up-air can only go into another Up-air or WD/Jump.

I was originally thinking you could SH Double Bair someone (their shield) AND Z drop a banana as well but I forgot that makes you throw it =/ (so you would have to Z-drop and re-catch while doing the aerial) but that I think that makes double bairing not have enough time.

 

[Plum]

His fairly low traction is very good for him.
His long wavedash gives him control over his bananas from a long distance, and you don't have to commit yourself in the way you have to when you use dash attack to pick up bananas.
Ever play against Squirtle or Luigi? If you just leave a banana unintended against them they can just grab it out of nowhere with their insane wavedashes.

 

[G13_Flux]

well in brawl, u could glide toss and throw in all 4 directions. u can still do this, but it doesnt offer the same slide. in characters like peach, ROB, and diddy, ive noticed that they have one direction where they can throw and get a good glide toss, but if they try to throw upwards or backwards (or anything other than that one combo of roll direction and throw direction) then they get virtually zero glide. so what im saying is that glide tossing has lost its utility cuz u only get one damn direction to do it in. maybe the timings just insanely hard, in which case id love for someone to post a clip of them doing it correctly. idealy, i have known that glide tossing is quicker, and yes you can do it OOS, making it a great option. but in reality, since most of the directions dont really work, u cant apply that concept as liberally as u would in brawl, severely limiting its use.

It would really help if a PMBR member who knows about the mechanics behind this could tell me more, cuz in my experience with it, its not the same at all as it once was.

on another note, something really cool with diddy kong is the use of his popgun in conjunction with wavebounce and WL to keep excellent control over your position and add to your baiting and punishing game. I am a wolf main, so since diddys popgun has the same attribute as his blaster, they can pull off some similar maneuvers. check out this link. its too a thread created under wolfs character page. it gives clips of some maneuvers u can do with the wavebounce and WL:

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=331762

most of these should apply to diddy, but im not sure about the ledge invincibility trick. while its possible with wolf to shoot out a blaster shot from ledge and do it with no vulnerability, im not sure if the timing on diddys popgun, or his DJ quickness, will allow him to do so. when i get a chance ill try to test it.

 

[DiSQO_BuNNY]

well in brawl, u could glide toss and throw in all 4 directions. u can still do this, but it doesnt offer the same slide. in characters like peach, ROB, and diddy, ive noticed that they have one direction where they can throw and get a good glide toss, but if they try to throw upwards or backwards (or anything other than that one combo of roll direction and throw direction) then they get virtually zero glide. so what im saying is that glide tossing has lost its utility cuz u only get one damn direction to do it in. maybe the timings just insanely hard, in which case id love for someone to post a clip of them doing it correctly. idealy, i have known that glide tossing is quicker, and yes you can do it OOS, making it a great option. but in reality, since most of the directions dont really work, u cant apply that concept as liberally as u would in brawl, severely limiting its use.

It would really help if a PMBR member who knows about the mechanics behind this could tell me more, cuz in my experience with it, its not the same at all as it once was.

on another note, something really cool with diddy kong is the use of his popgun in conjunction with wavebounce and WL to keep excellent control over your position and add to your baiting and punishing game. I am a wolf main, so since diddys popgun has the same attribute as his blaster, they can pull off some similar maneuvers. check out this link. its too a thread created under wolfs character page. it gives clips of some maneuvers u can do with the wavebounce and WL:

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=331762

most of these should apply to diddy, but im not sure about the ledge invincibility trick. while its possible with wolf to shoot out a blaster shot from ledge and do it with no vulnerability, im not sure if the timing on diddys popgun, or his DJ quickness, will allow him to do so. when i get a chance ill try to test it.

Glidetossing is 1 frame slower than a regular throw. You might be right with the timing thing, but sometimes a character will have different lengths for different tosses.

 

[SpiderMad]

I'm pretty sure you can still Up-throw/Down-throw a banana while having the glide toss move you backwards or forwards. Do you still want someone to record it for you?

And with Wave-bouncing his peanuts, I usually just do that and don't Wave-land out of it: seems too hard to wave-bounce AND wave-land it, because you have to start firing ASAP from the jump. I think Wolf also has a easier frame wise WL out of his laser than Diddy's.

http://youtu.be/XHjTmi8twz8
I made a video for the AC stuff I talked about, it includes:
SH Bair to Bair/Up-air/Nair/Fair
SH Up-air to Up-air
SH AC Fair/Nair

I don't know which is safest on shield until I get frame data (or get it myself), Bair to Fair is likely the most powerful, but it's the hardest to land and you have to factor in that Fair probably has more land lag than the rest of his aerials besides Dair. The 2nd Bair (in SH Bair to Bair) MIGHT be able to Autocancel though, that would presumably make it the most safe: I'm 70% sure it can't though.

 

[tripwire]

You for sure can glide toss up/down while rolling either way.

 

[Plum]

You can definitely glide toss in any direction with a roll in either direction.
If you aren't dribbling between stocks you're doing something wrong

 

[SpiderMad]

If you aren't dribbling between stocks you're doing something wrong

Isn't that just Down throwing the banana with Front and Backwards shifting Glide tosses? Why is that useful besides it doing the most damage apparently in Brawl?

Edit: Diddy-up Gif
Grounded has 4 frames of invinc on start-up but this is only the launch after the charge
so it goes start-up(4 frames, all invinc) into charge (probably doesn't enter any charge animation if you don't start charging it)[charge has different animations for ground charge and aerial charge] into release (both grounded and up-b go into the same release)

Spoiler

So on a non-charge up-b say OOS, you get 4 frames of invinc to miss an attack, then basically a super huge shine hitbox on the very frame you become non-invinc (along with the two other hitboxes still lasting after it), and then if you have a platform or anything above you to try and ledgecancel off of it's safer on ending than Samus's by a lot.

Landing lag for it is 15 frames (Samus's is 24 and Sheik's is 30)
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=320253
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=299984
Not only is the landing lag super low, but his slippery low traction allows him to totally slide after touching the ground which makes it harder to punish than a stationary landing lag animation like Sheik's or Samus's.

BEST UP-B MOVE IN THE GAME BESIDES BOWSERS (though this one is better in the recovery aspect)

 

[Wieners]

Isn't that just Down throwing the banana with Front and Backwards shifting Glide tosses? Why is that useful besides it doing the most damage apparently in Brawl?

It's flashy and it makes the ladies swoon.

 

[DiSQO_BuNNY]

It's flashy and it makes the ladies swoon.

This guy has the juice! Automatic to you good sir!

 

[GuruKid]

The distance Diddy Kong travels during a glide-toss is not dependent on the direction of the throw but rather the frame where the roll transitions (interrupts) into the item throw animation.

[collapse=Throw Direction Comparison]

[/collapse]

The above throws are done at the quickest possible timing (1 frame into the roll). Notice that Diddy throw animation ends with him just barely beyond the MasterBall outer center circle.

[collapse=Toss Timing Comparison]

[/collapse]

You have a 4-frame window at the beginning of the roll to input the item throw to achieve a glide toss. The first gif shows the distance achieved at the earliest possible timing; the second one shows the distance at the latest possible timing (4th frame). Essentially, the later the interrupt the longer the travel distance.

As far as its utility vs throw out of a wavedash it should go without saying that you'd be sacrificing a much quicker throw for moderately greater distance.

[collapse=Wavedash Item Throw]

[/collapse]

This would be the max distance considering ideal control stick direction.

Some data for the earliest possible time the banana goes airborne and is capable of hitting the opponent from both throw variations, directly from either standing or Out-of-Shield:

Forward/Upward Item Throw:
- Glide Toss: 8
- Wavedashed Toss: 22

Backward Item Throw:
- Glide Toss: 9
-Wavedashed Toss: 23

Downward Item Throw:
- Glide Toss: 7
-Wavedashed Toss: 21


EDIT: Here's a clearer portrayal of UpB's hitboxes and intangibility. Keep in mind that UpB has 4 separate subactions or parts to it; here they are in order:

-Startup
-Charge (holding B to gain height)
-Active Frames (starting when the hitboxes emerge through the apex of the boost)
-SpecialFall (when Diddy falls with his hands high in the air, unable to act until he lands)

Note that you can bypass the charge portion completely by simply not holding B by the end of the Startup.

[collapse=Startup + Active Frames (No Charge!)]

Up-B
Grounded

Intangibility: 1-4
Hits: 5-7, 8-16, 17-39

Aerial

Hits: 8-10, 11-19, 20-42
Landing Lag from SpecialFall: 8
Landing Lag from Active Animation (while jetpack is still out): 16
​

[/collapse]

Note that the hit timings above are without any charge, so hits will of course come out later depending on how long you charge the attack.

[collapse=More In-depth Look]

[/collapse]

The hitbox sizes are a bit misleading when viewed only from the front. As you can see, the hitboxes attach to the jetback barrels now and thus emerge slightly into the Z-axis (behind Diddy Kong). Even though Smash is played on a 2D plane all hitboxes and hurtboxes are 3D, so for example during the later hits an opponent's thinner hurtbox (an arm or leg) can overlap with Diddy's arm and still not take a hit if the arm or leg doesn't veer a bit into the Z-axis as well to overlap with the barrel hitboxes.

 

[Plum]

Isn't that just Down throwing the banana with Front and Backwards shifting Glide tosses? Why is that useful besides it doing the most damage apparently in Brawl?

Yeah, dribbling is when you glidetoss the banana downwards, pick it up immediately and glidetossing again. Rinse and repeat, forward and back, across the stage, whatever.
It's usefulness in PM and Brawl for that matter is questionable at best outside of mindgames, but it's great when you want to be flashy and show off some technical skill with Diddy because why not?
There are three variations, single dribbling (dribbling with one banana across the stage), double dribbling (really fast dribbling back and forth between two bananas), and pivot dribbling (one banana, pivot just as the glide toss ends to pick up the banana, allowing you to change directions).

It's flashy and it makes the ladies swoon.

This man is doing it right.

 

[SpiderMad]

In Brawl you could do aerials with a Banana by Z dropping it, and then doing the aerial which would re-grab it. You can't do that anymore, is that a big loss?

 

[tripwire]

Are you sure you can't? I mean Z air still grabs items.

 

[SpiderMad]

"<Mad]\>: you would Z drop the banana, do the aerial, and then regrab it with the aerial
<Mad]\>: but you can't grab items with aerials
<GuruKid>: Yeah, you can no longer do that now."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL8F2E08DC2D10BFA6&v=GmbsKXiraiU&feature=player_detailpage#t=31s
If you use Z-air to perform the aerial as well as to grab the item, it still won't perform the aerial but instead just grab the item. So I don't think there's anyway unless someone comes up with something crazy like Frenum.

This might still work though:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL8F2E08DC2D10BFA6&v=GmbsKXiraiU&feature=player_detailpage#t=42s

 

[tripwire]

Ah I see. Wish i had my wii on me but i doubt there is a way around that. I know you can Smash while holding a nanna, maybe try doing that in midair.

 

[SpiderMad]

Frenum will find a way, maybe he'll play Diddy after he gets enough squirtle. Where's you Wii?

Okay so Samus and Diddy are similar in that Homing missile/Strong Missile and Short flip/Long flip require either weak input or hard input. I hate playing Samus though because inputting strong missiles is super annoying and I feel hurts the controller a little, so am I doing it wrong where I don't actually have to jam the stick and B button in a rapid motion? I think Samus mains would have unlocked the secret to making it as comfortable as possible to do by now.

 

[tripwire]

I left at my friends house we usually play there. You have to smash input to get the stronger/Longer special moves.

 

[SpiderMad]

Yeah but do you have to really smash it? Is there some way to break down the frame inputs so that really it's just pressing both at the same time and no jamming style of motion is required? I want to spam the long distance one because it's so good but it's annoying to perform

 

[tripwire]

I'm assuming you use the Cstick to smash.

 

[SpiderMad]

I'm assuming you use the Cstick to smash.

Lol yes, and Wifi build to only have to light press to Air dodge <3

But yeah, Smash inputting side-b requires like 2x more of a smashed input than it does for doing grounded Forward smash.

 

[tripwire]

Really? never noticed. Then again I slam my buttons kinda hard.

 

[SpiderMad]

So I was experimenting with SH Peanut Gun Airdodge recatch stuff: so then I tried FH Peanut Gun Airdodge Recatch converted into AGT, and then I got excited and thought maybe if you had a peanut or banana in your hand and then did the FH Peanut gun airdodge recatch AGT maybe you could AGT the thing in your hand (since the Peanut gun has a short AD cancel) and then use that momentum to also catch and glide toss the peanut after you threw the first item. Sadly though Forward AGT doesn't actually give you momentum added on when you're past a decent amount of velocity already, instead it kind of negates it: I tried all the other tosses to like Backwards AGT and that's as good as it gets and it still can't let you reach the peanut. It would of been like that Waddle Tossing AT thing (where you throw a minion, then you Waddle toss it (while in the air) which gives you momentum as well as tosses it but then your momentum allows to reach it again to then Waddle toss it again either backwards or forwards). Like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=n_WdT75QsXY#t=86s

Other than that being a let down though you can do these things:
FH Peanut Gun into Re-catch AGT
SH Peanut Gun into Re-catch AGT or Grounded Glide Toss (which you can give Forward/Backward Momentum)
FH Peanut Gun into Side-b into Re-catch AGT (Requires you be a on decently tall platform and then you have to wait for the side-b to reach its IASA/End)
SH Peanut Gun into WL into Dash Attack to recatch the Peanut using Z

Some uses for some of these are:
You can SH Peanut Gun into AGT of a Banana to double threat an offstage opponent quickly (You can AGT the Banana Forward or Down, or even Backwards so that it hits the ledge and drops down, and then you can also decipher where you want your momentum to go [So it's Toss direction with the C-stick, Momentum direction with the Control stick])

I'll have videos of this soon like I always do [40% Done]



Also forgot to mention, you can still do this now that Diddy is available to have bananas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5WiJLJFiIY

I just did a couple stages, maybe there's a few that are really hard to reach the person even with projectiles (unless your pit).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3wjIqOJpW0 [*I just realized I was doing it too fast, now I got it super consistent]
Stages with some sort of solid platform can also work. The best place to practice this is in the bottom part of Hyrule Temple

Hey how do you wall cling by the way?

 

[tripwire]

Push and hold you stick into a wall.

 

[G13_Flux]

ok i never noticed that the timing for glide tossing (or getting the max distance) was so strict. i had tried to do it, and he would throw the banana in the direction, but i could only get slides in one direction. maybe i was just good at getting the timing in a certain direction. the buffer in brawl probably made it a lot easier to do glide tosses. im glad all that got cleared up then. thank you guru kid for posting that data.

so couldnt that be a form of stalling? its interesting cuz the PMBR was trying to remove those tactics. im sure the item would probably dissapear after awhile too.

 

[SpiderMad]

no it's a form of dying after 8 seconds lol. Someone might be able to do it longer than 20 seconds eventually. Given, you can also grab the edge with air dodge or up-b (depending on the character), so it's sort of like MK's "scooging" where he flies under the stage back and forth: but making it across and grabbing the edge are both harder (except for some characters who might have a good Up-b like a tether to grab the edge easily after it).

 

[G13_Flux]

lmfao. never doubt peoples abilities to get good at ways to be a d*** in game.. haha. but yeah it does seem hard to pull off consitently.

be wary that the wall cling mechanics are even odder than the wall jump mechanics sometimes in my experience. i feel like sometimes it just flat out doesnt work unless im jumping directly at the wall having performed no other action within that jump. like i wish you could ledge drop > wall cling on stages like green hill zone and YI, but i cant do it. maybe this is another thing someone will instantly disprove me on though.