Kong Kollege: Diddy Kong Tactical Discussion

[Praxis]

Hey guys! So I've been practicing PM secretly underground (with lots of help from you all), and showed up to my first official tournament (Melee + PM singles and doubles) in my city yesterday in like, 2-3 years, IESmash Basement Bash 3.
24 players, great commentary, all livestreamed, very well run.

Our #1 Melee player, Chip, wasn't there, because he rarely shows up anyway, but I pulled out my Diddy and ripped through players #2-10 of our Melee PR as well as the PM exclusive players without losing a set, despite a nightmare bracket (I sent players 2-5 to the losers myself). I placed first. Results:

Project:M Singles:
1: Praxis
2: Zerxion
3: Alien
4: Jamnt0ast
5: The Foot
5: Kamaji
7: Freed
7: Garr
9: Shiny
9: Spruce-Lee
9: Gus
9: Xnpio
13: Vox
13: Xax
13: Pseudo
13: Atlas
17: Bentogami
17: 1-UP
17: MrCody
17: GBear
17: Lex
17: Zykor
17: Don't Chode Me
17: Ness


Videos should be uploaded soon, I'll post for critiques. Thanks all!

 

[DiSQO_BuNNY]

I know 1-UP. That's it.

 

[Praxis]

We're on the eastern side of Washington state. Jamnt0ast and Zerxion come from Brawl, Kamaji's been around the scene playing Melee since I started in 2007, Chip's our best player (most well known for his Melee Young Link, Brawl Toon Link, but mains Marth), and Alien's fairly new and gotten very good very quickly. Jamnt0ast runs regular carpools over to the western side for the monthlies and for smashfests, where you have Silent Wolf, Gimpyfish, Bladewise, etc. Western's definitely the stronger Melee region currently, but we're working on that and PM.

They're actually going to a GameClucks tournament to Seattle today for Melee/PM, so I'll be curious how their placements end up.

 

[DiSQO_BuNNY]

You guys should make a socal tourney

 

[DLA]

Well done Praxis.

 

[Soft Serve]

@ Seagull Joe good **** vs chillen lol. Your AGT > smash conversions were on point, and when chillen did start adapting you mixed it up immediately the next time you did it.


edit: set 2 was rough, Chillin didn't give you time to breath at all.

 

[Seagull Joe]

@ Seagull Joe good **** vs chillen lol. Your AGT > smash conversions were on point, and when chillen did start adapting you mixed it up immediately the next time you did it.


edit: set 2 was rough, Chillin didn't give you time to breath at all.

Thanks man. I said I was good. Wasn't lying. That was my 2 week old .

 

[DiSQO_BuNNY]

Replay?

10replay

 

[Spookyjunk]

Hey everyone, i've been playing diddy for a good 4/5 months and i love his playstyle. He's a ball of pure energy.... with a side of protein and potassium. Anyways, I got a question about diddy's up-B for going deep/gimping

What does his up-b beat when it comes to recoveries? I played a lucario this last Saturday at a tourney and I was able to rack up damage and keep his lucario off stage by knocking him off (FD)> go off the ledge a little bit and start charging up-B> release and intercept his recovery. This happened a good 2 or 3 times before it just killed him.

 

[Soft Serve]

Hey everyone, i've been playing diddy for a good 4/5 months and i love his playstyle. He's a ball of pure energy.... with a side of protein and potassium. Anyways, I got a question about diddy's up-B for going deep/gimping

What does his up-b beat when it comes to recoveries? I played a lucario this last Saturday at a tourney and I was able to rack up damage and keep his lucario off stage by knocking him off (FD)> go off the ledge a little bit and start charging up-B> release and intercept his recovery. This happened a good 2 or 3 times before it just killed him.

diddy's up-b hitboxes:

Spoiler

Total: 61
Charge Frame: 7
Hits: 8-45 (meteor hit only active frame 8)
Landing Lag: 18
Damage: 5-19

It has a 1 frame meteor on launch that looks pretty disjointed, hitting below his feet. Up-b is good for edge guarding against tethers like Ivy and ZSS once you figure out the swing distance, and for characters without good covering hitboxes above them (lucario, wario, GnW, other Diddys come to mind mostly). The meteor is only 1 frame though so it takes timing to actualy abuse the disjoint. Otherwise the regular hitbox isn't bad for trading/beating out other recoveries.

 

[Seagull Joe]

Replay?

10replay

What Disqo? VG will upload my sets in a few days probably.

Are you the same Disqo from texas? Didn't you used to play in brawl?

 

[DLA]

In my experience, the best way to edgeguard with barrels against a good portion of the cast is to just drop off the stage then blast straight up while they're trying to get back. Maybe trail off a bit towards the stage before you hit them so that you knock them back off the stage. The hitbox is really weird in regards to beating out other recoveries... sometimes you hit them and sometimes they hit you. But usually if they hit you, they'll get hit by a stray barrel anyways. Probably won't gimp but at least it'll help prevent you from getting edgeguarded yourself.

 

[Soft Serve]

What Disqo? VG will upload my sets in a few days probably.

Are you the same Disqo from texas? Didn't you used to play in brawl?

just uploaded

winners vs chillen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHK0wlDaBFA

winners vs pink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXxu1px-v6I

losers chillen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Hpbjhv4cuI

 

[Seagull Joe]

just uploaded

winners vs chillen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHK0wlDaBFA

winners vs pink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXxu1px-v6I

losers chillen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Hpbjhv4cuI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=We03o4oC0W4 <Versus 2fast.

 

[boss8]

yea seagull jus recently picked up diddy....****in diddy is a monster....

 

[Seagull Joe]

I'd say is top 6, but he's fine overall. People suck vs bananas in brawl and PM LOL.

 

[DiSQO_BuNNY]

I feel like diddys top 3-4.

Yeah, Disqo from Texas. I didn't really play snake tho, I was a diddy in brawl.

Yikes. Chillin and pink fresh went absolutely ham. You need more upsmashes vs fast fallers. Lucas is a fast faller as well. Your sideBs were on point, your followups after were sub par, but that's only because your inexperience of PM Diddy. Your choice of options were also really good. Dthrow is now a good throw also, learn it.

 

[Seagull Joe]

I feel like diddys top 3-4.

Yeah, Disqo from Texas. I didn't really play snake tho, I was a diddy in brawl.

Yikes. Chillin and pink fresh went absolutely ham. You need more upsmashes vs fast fallers. Lucas is a fast faller as well. Your sideBs were on point, your followups after were sub par, but that's only because your inexperience of PM Diddy. Your choice of options were also really good. Dthrow is now a good throw also, learn it.

I actually went into training mode prior to your post and checked follow ups on things from side b. This is my only after one and a half weeks lmao. I will usmash the fast fallers more and PF taught me how to fight AFTER the match.

I like Dthrow and know it's good, but it gives far less time to reset if I need to pull a naner. I'll try to utilize it more tho.

I'll be the best in PM in another few weeks. Count on it LOL.

 

[DiSQO_BuNNY]

Yeah, that post was straight up laced with cockiness, so have fun good luck hope you fail miserably

 

[MToaste]

I too agree that Diddy is top 3-4. I love his design, but his approach is a bit nuts if you if exploit his bananas properly and it isn't nearly as difficult, volatile or technically demanding as Fox or Falco's stuff.

His recovery is also very obnoxious in my opinion. He has so many options, can get back from virtually anywhere, and if you hit him you still usually get hit by the barrels or even the hitbox on up-b. I definitely feel like that needs to be toned down, because it just feels so easy to get back to the stage as Diddy. It's especially ridiculous because his on-stage game is so powerful already, then he has this insane recovery haha.

Fair is also questionable and could probably do without all that knockback or could be given a slightly higher angle perhaps, but it's not as much of a concern to me as his recovery.

Has there been any word/talk on what changes Diddy will be seeing next release?

 

[DiSQO_BuNNY]

All of socal wants diddy nerfs lol.
Fair is fine, but fsmash should be toned down. The range is fine, but the strength could damn near knock optimus prime out. And landing lag from barrels should be increased a bit. Like, I realized I'm pretty spoiled with it. I'll hit someone at a ridiculous angle and then I'm able to combo them afterwards. Maybe this is intentional by guru, and I've been punished for it plenty of times by smarter players, but sometimes I just get back onstage for SUPER FREE. As long as fox exists, I'm fine with it, but diddy would be fine without the extremely safe recovery. Maybe a kinda safe recovery instead

 

[DLA]

Yeah I would not be opposed to a few Diddy nerfs. I still think the whole "getting hit in the head by a banana makes you trip" thing is dumb, I've had a big problem with it since Brawl came out. I said this in the Skype chat before but I think nanners should be a stage control tool, not a combo tool. Make them last much longer and only trip opponents if they walk over them, not if they get hit by one. If that makes Diddy too weak, make it so that Diddy can't trip over them, or take out the tech window for slipping over one. It's much easier to avoid walking over a banana than it is to avoid getting one thrown at you. I enjoy our current banana game, but I wouldn't complain if they changed it to what I just described.

Also I would agree that Fsmash and Fair need a little toning down. Hitting spacies at a 4-oclock angle with sweetspot Fair looks hilarious but it's pretty dumb.

@ Seagull Joe don't get too uppity now son. I'd be glad to MM you and take your money in a few weeks, or any number of weeks for that matter.

 

[Praxis]

I think you guys are exaggerating how good Diddy is. Maybe I'm just unlucky because all of my toughest regular opponents play Fox, Falco, and Link though.

I definitely agree that Diddy is very good, but I've watched a lot of Diddy videos and my own matches, and I have yet to see many people play an opponent that actually knows what to do about items. The PMBR added a huge mechanic of teching bananas that is barely utilized, 90% of Melee players don't even seem to know how to glide toss, and most Melee players don't realize they can wavedash over bananas either. Seriously, go watch *any* top Melee player vs a Diddy Kong and tell me how many times they glide toss or AGT. How many of your opponents that aren't your regular practice partner actually tech bananas on reaction? It's not that hard at all to do, either. I can do it in my sleep.

The Diddy players are dramatically ahead on an aspect of metagame that Brawl players are good at (understanding how glide tossing changes spacing) and Melee players aren't, and it's getting us a huge advantage on Melee players.

I also think people give Diddy too much leeway- with the higher speed of PM, it should be much harder for Diddy to get his bananas out. I see way too many players give Diddy space to get his naners.

I don't think Diddy needs a nerf at all. I think Diddy is a good character with the tools to fight almost everyone and won't have any horrible match ups. None of his tools are absurdly good once bananas stop becoming overpowering because people don't know how to wavedash in to them. But I think we get away with way too much right now and he's going to have his share of even and slightly negative match ups across the board once people figure out items.

Have you any of you seen Mewtwo glide toss?

 

[SpiderMad]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87G-nPP4Njo

 

[DeFish]

Have any of you guys ever down smashed while holding a banana before? I've done it a few times by accident, but can't reliably reproduce it. It seems like it'd be incredible to be able to do it on command.

 

[Seagull Joe]

Yeah, that post was straight up laced with cockiness, so have fun good luck hope you fail miserably

Thanks. And btw, I'm kidding most of the time when I say cocky **** like that, but I do have aspirations to be the best at whatever I do.

@ Seagull Joe don't get too uppity now son. I'd be glad to MM you and take your money in a few weeks, or any number of weeks for that matter.

Sure Tom tho I hate ditto'ing in any game outside of dittos in brawl.

I think you guys are exaggerating how good Diddy is. Maybe I'm just unlucky because all of my toughest regular opponents play Fox, Falco, and Link though.

I definitely agree that Diddy is very good, but I've watched a lot of Diddy videos and my own matches, and I have yet to see many people play an opponent that actually knows what to do about items. The PMBR added a huge mechanic of teching bananas that is barely utilized, 90% of Melee players don't even seem to know how to glide toss, and most Melee players don't realize they can wavedash over bananas either. Seriously, go watch *any* top Melee player vs a Diddy Kong and tell me how many times they glide toss or AGT. How many of your opponents that aren't your regular practice partner actually tech bananas on reaction? It's not that hard at all to do, either. I can do it in my sleep.

The Diddy players are dramatically ahead on an aspect of metagame that Brawl players are good at (understanding how glide tossing changes spacing) and Melee players aren't, and it's getting us a huge advantage on Melee players.

I also think people give Diddy too much leeway- with the higher speed of PM, it should be much harder for Diddy to get his bananas out. I see way too many players give Diddy space to get his naners.

I don't think Diddy needs a nerf at all. I think Diddy is a good character with the tools to fight almost everyone and won't have any horrible match ups. None of his tools are absurdly good once bananas stop becoming overpowering because people don't know how to wavedash in to them. But I think we get away with way too much right now and he's going to have his share of even and slightly negative match ups across the board once people figure out items.

Have you any of you seen Mewtwo glide toss?

I SUPER AGREE with you. Every player I fight lets me get out bananas or just throws them back at me as if i won't shield. I feel like people just suck with bananas, but they've sucked with them since brawl.

 

[Praxis]

Seagull- people throw bananas back at us like we won't shield it because that's what works on them! It's weird to see even great players just ignoring them when naners come out. I also frequently see good players forget a naner is on the ground and trip on it while comboing me, or dropping the combo because the naner prevents continuation, when they could just WD over it and use the naner to continue the combo.

For the record, I think Fox, Falco, Link, Pit, Marth, and Lucario are better than Diddy at minimum, and possibly Mario, Ivy, and others. He's good but not in need of any nerfs. (I don't mean these characters beat Diddy, I mean they are overall better)

DLA- if banana tripping was taken out, I would quit playing Diddy. I switched to him in 3.0 purely because I love naner combos.

 

[DiSQO_BuNNY]

Diddy originally had bananas that caused a ground bounce angle, and only tripped when thrown at the ground. This was counter productive to diddys combo potential, as it promoted forcing the opponent away from diddy rather than trapping in hopes of comboing or killing @ DLA

@ Praxis and @ Seagull Joe you're absolutely right. Many people struggle with bananas. And that gives us a huge edge. But regardless, a couple things about diddy need to be addressed, like our star killing fsmash

 

[Praxis]

Diddy originally had bananas that caused a ground bounce angle, and only tripped when thrown at the ground. This was counter productive to diddys combo potential, as it promoted forcing the opponent away from diddy rather than trapping in hopes of comboing or killing @ DLA

I remember this, this is why I didn't main Diddy til 3.0.

@ Praxis and @ Seagull Joe you're absolutely right. Many people struggle with bananas. And that gives us a huge edge. But regardless, a couple things about diddy need to be addressed, like our star killing fsmash

I'm not sure why that needs to be addressed? The move has plenty of end lag, and Diddy as a fastfaller gets punished badly if he whiffs it. It's not free. If, oh, Marth utilts you because you were getting greedy, you're going to eat a bad combo. Fair is in fact a necessity against characters like Marth and Jigglypuff, and Diddy actually doesn't have great kill options, he just gets more shots at landing them because of banana tech roll reads (or free hits against people who don't tech, which seems to be everyone at the moment).

Fox's usmash and Marth's fair are both better moves, and there's no need to "fix" them. Given that they're both better characters than Diddy IMO, I don't see a reason Diddy needs to be "fixed".

I honestly feel like Diddy is perfect. He has an uphill struggle against some characters but none of them terribly. He's got lots of good tools, is above average in some categories but can be juggled pretty badly if he makes mistakes. He creates lots of reading moments that test the player. Great conversion of a Brawl character to Melee style (unlike Lucario and Wario which basically give a middle finger to their Brawl players).

 

[Seagull Joe]

Praxis I agree with everything you said, except I think is garbage.

 

[DeFish]

So, a friend and I discovered last night that you can use directional aerials out of hit stun while holding a banana. Is that something from Melee/Brawl, or unique to PM?

 

[Praxis]

So, a friend and I discovered last night that you can use directional aerials out of hit stun while holding a banana. Is that something from Melee/Brawl, or unique to PM?

Wait, what? How?

 

[Seagull Joe]

So, a friend and I discovered last night that you can use directional aerials out of hit stun while holding a banana. Is that something from Melee/Brawl, or unique to PM?

Explain?

 

[Soft Serve]

You can do aerials out of tumble with items in your hand. So like how you cant air dodge out of tumble, but you can jump/do attacks specials, or mash out of it. I guess you cant do nairs with items though? I didnt think this was that new

 

[DeFish]

Soft has it. You can't Nair, but any of the other aerials work. I tried looking it up afterwards but couldn't find anywhere explicitly stating that it was possible. That said, I know that things like the rising Nayru's are possible after getting hit, so I'd like to see of there's any other weird interactions like that.

Edited because mobile typing is hard.

 

[DLA]

Out of tumble, or out of hitstun? If it was out of hitstun then we'd be living to like 200% every stock.

 

[DeFish]

I guess tumble is the right term, in this case. Apologies.

 

[Hashtag]

I think diddy's fsmash is way less free than fox ' s usmash. Diddy's fair is also just... similar to Sheik's, and people hate her fair.

That's not new though.

Also, the aerials with bananas thing, I've done it a lot while wanting to get rid of a banana. Didn't really know what caused it, glad someone figured it out.

If diddy gets nerfred, I can name at least 7 others that need to be nerfed as well.

 

[DeFish]

I feel like people are getting into the habit of wanting to nerf anyone strong that wasn't also strong in Melee. Sonic, Ike, and Ivy weren't nerfed because they were overwhelmingly better than everyone else, they were nerfed because they received buffs that led to them having very one-dimensional playstyles with very little counterplay. Diddy has counterplay, whether it's people actually bothering to learn how items work in this game, learning how to deal with his recovery options, or his perfect combo weight.

I think that one thing people got kind of spoiled with in Melee is that none of the top tier characters really force you to adjust your playstyle to a large degree. While you have to play the matchup slightly differently depending on who it's against, for the most part your strategy as Fox, Falco, Sheik, or Marth will be fairly consistent. Aggression is very heavily rewarded in Melee, but in PM certain characters (Zelda comes to mind) punish mindless aggression. Looking at the characters people complain about the most (Zelda, Ivy, Diddy, Mario, etc.) it's mostly characters that force you to not just be mindlessly aggressive, but really play a smart neutral game. That throws people off of their normal rhythm, and folks generally don't like that.

 

[Praxis]

I feel like people are getting into the habit of wanting to nerf anyone strong that wasn't also strong in Melee. Sonic, Ike, and Ivy weren't nerfed because they were overwhelmingly better than everyone else, they were nerfed because they received buffs that led to them having very one-dimensional playstyles with very little counterplay. Diddy has counterplay, whether it's people actually bothering to learn how items work in this game, learning how to deal with his recovery options, or his perfect combo weight.

I think that one thing people got kind of spoiled with in Melee is that none of the top tier characters really force you to adjust your playstyle to a large degree. While you have to play the matchup slightly differently depending on who it's against, for the most part your strategy as Fox, Falco, Sheik, or Marth will be fairly consistent. Aggression is very heavily rewarded in Melee, but in PM certain characters (Zelda comes to mind) punish mindless aggression. Looking at the characters people complain about the most (Zelda, Ivy, Diddy, Mario, etc.) it's mostly characters that force you to not just be mindlessly aggressive, but really play a smart neutral game. That throws people off of their normal rhythm, and folks generally don't like that.

Yeah, all of this. Fox's usmash, Sheik's fair, Marth's grab and fair, etc get free passes because they were in Melee. If they were PM additions, people would be complaining that they were "stupid".

If anyone else gets something moderately good, everyone complains that it's stupid. But frankly, the top Melee cast all have "stupid" things and others need it to compete.

Diddy competes with the Melee top tiers now without being better than them. IMO he's probably 7th or 8th in the game. It's very well balanced. But people will complain.

And the rhythm thing is very true. I'm used to that kind of thing in Brawl (characters that force you to play smart neutral). In Melee, the only good characters like that are Jigglypuff and Samus, and everyone complains about Jiggs.


Diddy has so much counter play though. He gets juggled in combos badly, and I see so much potential for people to fight my banana play that isn't being taken advantage of. If he got nerfed, I would probably switch characters. I don't think he's a top character, just "pretty good".