Meta Knight Match-Up Discussion 6 | Diddy Kong

[Katakiri]

Welcome to our Diddy Kong match-up discussion!

Current MU Ratio:

:

Discuss character strengths, weaknesses, ground-game, air-game, and all things Bananas vs Bats here.​

Got questions, opinions, or suggestions you want to share about other characters? Head over to the Meta Knight Match-Up Discussion Directory Thread or the Meta Knight Social/General Discussion; we're more than happy to help you.​

Some rules, guidelines, and tips. Some of these are a given since you joined any forums.

1. Be respectful of each other. No insults, no trolling, no flaming, or any of that nonsense.
2. Be aware that some of the discussions can and will be old, so don't call out someone for "wrong" data if that post was referring to say, patch 1.03 stuff.
3. Be impartial; learn to see things from other sides. So, don't boast about all the advantages. Notice weaknesses and strengths from both parties.
4. Stay on topic.
5. Have fun.

Frame Data to expand your mind!:​

|Hit Frames|Hit Frames
Jab | 6, HYAYAYAYAYAYA, 30 | 3-4, 14-15, 27-28 (Repeating), 8-9 (Finish)
Dash Attack | 7-11 | 9, 18, 24
F-Tilt | 6, 12, 17 | 10-13
U-Tilt | 8-10, 8-14, 11-14 | 6-11
D-Tilt | 3-4 | 4-5
Side Smash | 24 | 12-13, 22-24
Up Smash | 8, 12, 17 | 5-8, 12-15, 19-23
Down Smash | 4, 9 | 6-7, 16-18
N-Air | 6-7, 8-20 | 8-20
F-Air | 9, 12, 15 | 6-16
B-Air | 7-8, 13-14, 20-21 | 5-8
U-Air | 6 | 3-7
D-Air | 4 | 17
Grab | 7-8 | 6-7
Dash Grab | 9-10 | 8-9
Pivot Grab | 9-10 | 9-10

 

[ItoI6]

you need to position yourself as mk so that you can catch diddy with upb as he passes over you when he sidebs from very high up in the air back to the stage. diddy can air dodge faster than you think out of his side b so you need to space yourself so that upb hits him while still in the flipping animation. its very bad if mk misses upb so just be as accurate as you can i guess and keep yourself in a position below diddy so that youre still threatening it if hes already out of lag before you can reach him. just always expect the high side b back to stage because diddy does it for free against most of the cast and you can get him good for it.

when diddy is lower and tries to side b challenging it from the side is pretty bad and not really that rewarding instead you should fastfall onto him with dair, if it hits hes usually dead since mk just follows him down to the blast zone. aside from diddy side bing from high up back to stage he can also choose to start his upb from very far horizontally off stage where mk cant reach him while hes still charging, and because rocket barrels move so fast when fully charged its very difficult to cover the angle he chooses even from far away. usually i just hover close to the ledge and try and dair him since you cant really challenge the startup and you can still catch him if you dont fail. personally i dont think nair is effective for gimps in this matchup because rocket barrel seems to blast through sour nair every time for me and the sweetspot is still hard to time and doesnt gimp anyways. i think you just need to be accurate with dairs which is difficult but possible with good timing, and when mk actually manages to land it offstage he should always kill diddy every time if he has no jump.

onstage is really bad vs diddy because mk just cant match a single thing he does. diddys sh fair and uair are basically unchallengable and the best mk can do is dash attack under diddy at the perfect time while hes landing and the hitbox starts to disappear. neutral is especially bad when diddy has a banana in his hand because at this point literally everything mk does, even a perfectly spaced dash attack through shield, gets punished by oos banana toss. the only thing he can do at this point is stay sort of close to diddy to threaten a grab, while expecting the banana throw so you can jump backwards and pick up the banana before diddy can. shielding the banana toss is definitely less than ideal but sometimes its the only thing you can do, and if it happens i usually fullhop dair out of shield to catch diddy if he dash grabs but keep in mind its always in diddys favor when you are trapped in shield and anything can get punished with the right option.

diddy is a punishing machine and even if mk pulls off optimal grab combos and gets in multiple uairs and tornado reads every time from dash attack and dash grab hes still only probably barely ahead hit for hit while being much worse in neutral. in order to stay competitive mk needs to never let diddy land for free and to catch his side bs when he tries to escape juggles with shuttle loop. its probably a solid 75-25 for diddy but it might get better in the future we'll see.

 

[W.A.C.]

I haven't fought a competent Diddy Kong with Meta Knight yet, but it sounds like Diddy is Meta Knight's worst matchup by far. I'm surprised I don't see more Diddy Kongs at tournaments in NorCal. The only really good Diddy Kong player I ever see is Sean and he pretty much wrecks at every tournament I see him attend. What's Meta Knight's second worst matchup? Sonic?

 

[AmishTechnology]

In customs, High Speed Drill will always beat banana toss and monkey flip. You can use this to punish brainless/stupid tosses and flips, but it really doesn't change too much in the end against a competent Diddy player because they just will make it less telegraphed when they'll go for these. I think you can suicide drill if they are high enough % and try to flip onto the stage by just HSD'ing them away lol. Monkey Flip you should be able to punish reactively, but I think he may be able to shield your drill after a banana toss if he is far away enough and, if he's close enough, you can't drill it by reaction so he'll just banana hoo haa whatever the **** you instead.

If he has banana in hand and you're trying to land, you're probably ****ed. You can try to bait a banana toss by jumping right before you land, but he'll probably catch on and just count your 5 air jumps, then toss it at you after that. Maybe if you d-cape perfectly to grab ledge and thus reset jumps, you can reset that whole scenario lmao. Guess you gotta perfect shield bananas now lol, good luck with that online. Or maybe, even on ground, we just have to d-cape onto ledge when we anticipate banana or react to a far banana toss (once again, can't react to it when close). God, this is so dire for us.

For whatever reason, d-tilt will miss a lot even when he's point-blank range. I think he just kinda does little hops in a lot of his attacks and that causes MK to miss the foot poke lol.

I almost think Diddy is worse than Sonic due to bananas alone. If bananas weren't a thing, we would be able to much more freely play our normal game of "outplay the **** out of my opponent with dash grab and dash attack alone with random tornados thrown in".

It's time to go 20xx and optimize our footstool 0-death combos and banana perfect shields.

 

[warionumbah2]

Nothing is worse than Sonic on FD lets get that straight real talk.

And Dtilt only whiffs on his idle animation(you wouldn't Dtilt him anyway if he's standing there) and all his smashes mainly F-Smash and U-Smash. If Diddy misses a banana throw we can be punished hard, banana throw into DA into 4 uair then finish it with a shuttle loop i think thats the maximum damage you can get in that scenario and any competent MK user can string uairs on a fast faller like Diddy(he's around the same fall speed as Sheik) he also has no way on stopping our uair strings since his uair doesn't hit under him.

SV is the to go to stage, maybe battlefield but i wouldn't fight him on a small stage. If he whips out a banana sometimes the platform will catch it, this gives us an opening to attack once he jumps towards the banana. Diddy is indeed scary with a nana in hand and he invalidates most of our options(safe ones that is) but we can bait a throw something MK users should be doing like its their ABC's we bait guys.

If Diddy is using rising fair we can punish with a dash attack, we can throw it out at frame 1 if done right(i use the c-stick but Lavani said you can do it without the stick) also the Diddy user has to commit to that more than he would against C.Falcon due to MK being Kirby size. Sh Uair is unchallengeable however you can shield it and punish with Grab,OOS Dair or Shuttle Loop.

F-Smash is the to go to move against a nanaless Diddy, it baits and it keeps him out. If Diddy grabs he'll get hit by the F-Smash. This MU is basically MK outdoing Diddy in neutral but when the banana comes into play we must bait that **** and steal it to start our own combo and also punish some of his moves with OOS item toss. Like @ AmishTechnology said HSD is really useful against Diddy in neutral and i think us having the nana in hand is beneficial since we can HSD on reaction if he throws out a rising fair or monkey flip.

Would say its 55:45 i would agree with Itols ratio(first time ever) on low ceiling stages he's the no1 character where you don't want to take him to TnC or Helbird unless you wanna throw your set away. God forbid Diddy lives to 105% but we do have a reliable kill setup on him that kills without much rage if not any at all, if Diddy throws a nana into our shield and goes for a dash grab we can Dtilt him and Shuttle Loop. I would actually bump this to 60:40 if no one bothers to convince me otherwise, he's not a MU where you need a secondary although he exerts alot of pressure because he's 'the best'.

 

[Exdeath]

Diddy is a middle weight with standard fall speed. I don't really know this MU because I use Diddy vs. both MK and other Diddys and autopilot the best MKs in my region.

The first stage vs. Diddy is when he wants to pull out a banana. Either take it from him or do not let him have one at all. Bait him into throwing it and air dodge catch it, Uair him/the banana, catch it with aerials, dash attack pick up (really, pressing down and then A will pick it up out of a dash), etc. The best MK vs. Diddy will always do this.

Diddy without banana has a mediocre neutral game that really only works if you aren't familiar with it. Pick your hits so that you get more reward than him and don't get grabbed, as 40-60s (high-low rage) and then 70s-90s are kill percents if you get grabbed. Diddy's grab combos aren't that rewarding if you DI properly. DI into Diddy at low % Uair strings to minimize the number that he gets. If you aren't at kill %, DI up and, after knockback, away afterward -- Diddy's Uair does less damage than Fair and you can use your jumps to reach the ledge.

Space yourself so that if Diddy Side-Bs to you, you can roll away and he'll whiff in your face. Power shield>Dtilt>stuff vs. Diddy's tilts or just shield grab if you're midway through Diddy's Dtilt when it hits. Diddy can't hit MK with rising Fair, so react to SH with dash attack and take his stock from 4 encounters at neutral at most.

Off stage, shield by the ledge with your back to him and react: Side-B kicks onto the stage should be punished with shield grab>Bthrow, Nair his Up-Bs (with your back), Dair/Nair his Side-B grab, Dtilt/Fsmash his Side-B to the ledge.

All-in-all the MU is a lot easier for Diddy, but if MK is optimizing his punishes then the MU itself isn't bad for MK -- just the player. Counterpick Battlefield in this MU; it's a real game changer and I think that MK is either even or has a slight edge vs. Diddy there.

 

[warionumbah2]

-Dthrow does have more Knockback, meaning without DI at 80% the UAir isnt a guarantee

- UAir has longer End Lag, takes much longer to do 2 UAir and even jump between them. if you connect 2 UAir its not a true combo

- UAir doesnt kill at 140% if used on the ground

- jabs has a really long "press a to proceed to next jab" meaning its hard to jab once and grab (unless its is as before)

- bananas disappear after the second throw once grabbed (not sure if it was before this update).it could be an buff if you look through the other side, that the opponent cant grab your banana, toss it and make it be on the ground against you

-Banana disappears after hitting once

-Fair has literally no kill power, and does 10% now.

-Up air has GREATLY REDUCED KILL POWER. Very unlikely to kill off dthrow up air now

.-Decreased damage on diddy hump-VERY HARD TO CHAIN UP AIRS. They have to DI extremely poorly.

-Worse dash grab

Diddy got nerfed while MK got little buffs to his nair end lag and cape. Of course I won't give input until I play the new diddy (probably gonna have a smaller playerbase after this lol).

 

[SpottedCerberus]

Do you think this MU might be slightly in MK's favour now? Or even, at least? I'm not sure how much these patches have changed it. MK has gotten some slight, but noticable buffs, and Diddy has gotten nerfed hard two times in a row.

 

[Jamurai]

This matchup is certainly better, now that Diddy's grab punishes are worse and we have a slightly stronger neutral, but there's still the banana problem... Diddy is obviously still a really good character especially against those who like playing on the ground. I'm interested to see what others think.

 

[Superbat]

The general opinion is that the matchup is even now. Now that his up air got axed, Diddy's EZ MONAY now. I'm joking lol

 

[ZTD | TECHnology]

I like how we're referring to an even MU as easy money rofl. I don't miss those pre 1.06 days though.

 

[busken]

I was on smashladder.com today and got a chance to play against a really good di

This matchup is certainly better, now that Diddy's grab punishes are worse and we have a slightly stronger neutral, but there's still the banana problem... Diddy is obviously still a really good character especially against those who like playing on the ground. I'm interested to see what others think.

This is not true at all. Our neutral is bad, and Diddy's is better then ours. Diddy's banana can also beat all of our approaches too. I got a chance to play a good diddy today on smashladder.com and I got a chance to talk to him about how he felt about our matches, diddy's nerfs, and the MU. He said that he believes that the MU is in diddy's favor just because MK doesn't really have any safe options in neutral. He also said that he sees MK like captain falcon but that can edge guard well. I thought about his points and he's pretty much right. Our offensive approach options are basically dash grab, dash attack, and running shield. All other options like drill rush, tornado, are just useless mix-ups. With banana in hand, he can thrash us in neutral, as the only way we can get a hit is by punishing a misspaced aerial with a dash attack, or somehow winning in footsies. Banana just beats all of our viable offensive options. I'm not sure if you can tornado or drill rush through banana, but those can easily be reacted to and punished. To make things even worse, is that our % per hit is slow. It improved in recent patches but its still low. Meaning that if we mess up our punishes, that means we only get chip damage and back to neutral. Our punishes have to be ON POINT to win. We can be dropping U-air>footstools or U-airs>Up-b. In close quarters, his peanuts are really annoying because we're pretty much force to a defensive option. I was at like near ledge and diddy was like near the center and he just threw peanuts at me. I tried to shielded them and tried to dash attack to punish the cooldown but he just smacked me with SH f-air so yeah. I guess you can air dodge catch them and try to throw'em back idk...

I talked to him a little more about how sees the MK and Falcon comparison and he basically said that both character's have really strong punish games. For falcon, it only takes on read in a combo to take your stock, and MK can juggle you to Up-B at low percents. He said that falcon's punish game is stronger though because he does more dmg per hit and he can kill easier at higher percents. I talked to him about Mk's edgeguarding and he said that MK's neutral seems that you will just have to simply outplay your opponent to get them off-stage anyway, meaning that you'll probably win because you're the better player.


Lastly, I talked to him about how he plays the MU and how MK should play it. He said for diddy you can pretty much just space aerials and wait for MK to commit to something. He said that MK's Up-B OOS is strong so you want to bait that out. This actually worked on me because I just had to shield his aerials and then he would dolphin SH around waiting for me to do it so yeah. IMO it's a mindgame. However, Diddy utimately gains the reward because if you miss, he has enough time to pull out a banana and glide toss+fsmash your landing so at high percents be careful. He said that he doesn't know much MK can do but adjust his punishes towards the ledge(obviously) and try to punish diddy for every thing misspaced.

I believe this MU is not in MK's favor. The recent patches just made diddy harder to kill you, but it really didn't mess up his neutral at all. If we get hit my a banana at high percents we're dead and even if we do manage to get a dash attack or grab it won't kill. Like Ito said you need to punish his side b landings and try to catch the mix-up. I say this is 60:40 in diddy's favor.

 

[warionumbah2]

A) You're playing online
B) That player basically has poor knowledge on MK so he lumped him with Falcon
C) You're playing online

MKs at this point won't struggle to get max damage of their throws OFFLINE, the reason people struggle with MK online is because you drop so many combo's easily and end up doing no damage.

Having a strong neutral doesn't make MK auto lose, the reason Falcon was terrible pre patch was because of his speed,range,kill power,damage per hit and neutral. Diddy absolutely destroyed us in damage,kill power and neutral. We now have jab to help screw Falcons recovery and wall out some of his approach options, although he still wins the MU.

Sheik is generally not bad for us, once again strong neutral but her damage per hi is awful. But her needle camping tips th MU significantly in her favour. I'll like to hear this MU from someone who played offline or against someone of equal skill level, also would like to read posts giving tips ad advice against Diddy since ratios aren't helpful.

What to do against Diddy who has nana in hand? What to do when he's off stage? What to do when we have ana in hand? I haven't played any Diddy's since people stop using him offline and somewhat online.

@ Katakiri played ZeRo so his input is dated and valuable.

 

[Katakiri]

So while I'm not the best player, I have a knack for rummaging around in the head of any player I fight and understanding their play and mindset quickly. That said, I played ZeRo 3 times Saturday (Round 2 of pools, doubles, & top 6 singles).

His neutral game is fishing for combos safely and putting in a lot of mix-ups. It's a lot of well-spaced F-Airs, B-Airs, and D-Tilts. He's always thinking about spacing but ready to pounce once he gets the hit confirm. He makes it very hard to get in but punishing his full-hops and punishing what little lag he does have makes it possible. When we're in a juggle scenario, Monkey Flip in the air is a free Up-Air combo even on ZeRo. Juggles and throws were where I built-up most of my damage on him.

So on top of being an amazing player in general, ZeRo is a master of micromanagement in Smash. He essentially treats his banana like a disjointed hitbox and will do a number of things with it:

Picking it up and throwing it was the most obvious. Every Diddy does it and we beat that option by hovering in the air with D-Airs.
He'll spawn one and bait you to either pick it up or bait us to go in and punish him for picking it up. This is something Brawl Diddys did too. They'll run passed the freshly spawned banana and try to grab you. The fact he's running at you means he only has so many options so punish him if you see it coming.
Option 3 is the one that sets ZeRo apart from other Diddy mains; he gets creative. For example: https://youtu.be/XPd4U-vaa0E?t=341 Here he spawns a banana on the top platform, later grabs me, up-throws, and b-air me into the banana, forces a trip, and Up-Airs. It might seem like he'shaving visions of the future but he was just aware of the situation and he's no doubt practiced that before. He sees an opportunity and he executes, it's that simple. Placing the banana in awkward spots and finding ways to abuse that comes from days of practice and labbing.​

Every time he pulls a banana, he places it for a reason. He's the best for a reason, he's always thinking. I don't think ZeRo's level is unreachable because it's all practice; everything he does is practiced. If someone with the skill and time practiced as much as he does, they could go even or better against him.

Anyway that was the breakdown of the ZeRo MU, as for Diddy, I'm still very much under the opinion this MU is 50:50 even. My MK is nowhere near as practiced as ZeRo's Diddy but I could hold my own and I could see the gaps in his play. Diddy's neutral isn't impenetrable but his hit-confirms into combos make it scarier than it actually is. Level heads will prevail as his neutral is not that great for approaching as it is walling slower characters out so don't let him bully you, Diddy should need reads to gain momentum almost as much as MK. MK has the advantage when it comes to juggling, Diddy's monkey flip is predictable and B-Reverse pop gun is only a mix-up while MK has one of the game's best tool-kits for avoiding juggles. When it comes to KOing, it's pretty even. Diddy has D-Tilt into Up-Smash which is threatening with rage but MK has stronger KO moves overall and a nasty off-stage gimping game that forces Diddy to recover high which means more Up-Airs possibly into an Up-B KO.

 

[busken]

I personally don't think he practiced what you mentioned. I think he just has amazing offensive awareness that he knows that these are the options you have, here what I can do to beat them. Like here: https://youtu.be/XPd4U-vaa0E?t=374

You were on the platform, and he threw the banana up for stage control, so you can't jump away. You could have dropped through the platform, and he waited for that before monkey flipping you as you just stayed in shield. He knows how to cover options, and he executes the perfectly. He obviously has immense input competence, but saying that he threw the banana up on the top platform just to grab you and hit you into it and saying that was practiced? No... In fact, he didn't throw the banana up their he spawned on and hit the button to hard so the banana flew to far and it got their. From their he just reacted to all of your approach options and did his normal combos, saw the banana was their and b-air you into it. In fact, ZeRo never spawns the banana that high in any of his videos. WHat he was planning to do, was put the banana on the ground, beating all of your grounded approaches, and probably SH f-airing for stage control. TLDR: that banana-setup was not practiced, it was offensive awareness that he took advantage.

My view on ZeRo is that his punish game is only comparable to somebody like Nairo at this point. He is very good at footsies, champions option coverage, and has blazing fast reaction time.

Oh yeah, congrats on getting 4th at FC Return dude, big accomplishment!

 

[Tito Maas]

Pit v. Meta Knight?

 

[warionumbah2]

Up smash doesn't whiff diddy anymore.

 

[W.A.C.]

Up smash doesn't whiff diddy anymore.

Ironically, Diddy's up smash now connects considerably better to where it's way less like to whiff. Both of my mains had their up smashes fixed. lol

 

[I speak Spanish too]

Yeah Pretty convinced this MU is 60:40 Diddy's favor
Diddy just needs to know the MU and spam SH f-air and place banana in the right range.

 

[tyro8]

I would say we should Re-Discuss this (if the community wants to) a lot of us in the skype say we lose this MU even Aba said we lose this MU slightly. We lose this MU for almost the same reason like Falcon, Diddy controls the neutral its harder for us to stay grounded because banana is a thing but u we can be as predictable in the air because that means a free u smash for Diddy. Like Katakiri said his Monkey Flip is a free punish if missed.

The moves we should evade are D tilt its really fast Frame 4 to be exact, gives him grabs and combos into itself at low % at high % it combos to u smash and RAR bair that and banana will be their favorite moves at high %. Banana we all know what this does lol. U tilt this kills at like 150%.
Like Katakiri said there is a big difference between mid level Diddys and high level Diddys, the mid lvl ones use the banana in the same way just to grab and get JC f smash/u smash, high lvl ones for example MVD, Dyr, ZeRo use the banana in more creative ways like the example Katakiri mentioned. Tyrant did say something about this MU too im not sure what score he said but i do remember he said something like this I like to bait their approaches (i dont remember much else of that part lol) when they have banana in hand i sit in the edge so if i get hit by the banana i wont be punished as hard.
I searched his words in the skype chat but i wasnt able to find them i just remember that because it looks really useful. We can gimp Diddy easily and thats good. The MU isnt impossible to win but it aint easy. If someone wants to see this MU played at high level play there is a video of Ito vs ZeRo in the Video Thread.

k so my opinion in this MU is 45:55 What Aba said of the MU said "MK slightly loses to Diddy Kong" so his opinion is the same as mine 45:55 in Diddy favor.

 

[warionumbah2]

Ito vs ZeRo is one sided beat down, no MK on this planet can contest ZeRo as a player.

 

[ZTD | TECHnology]

As long as Diddy controls a Banana or has one directly in front of him, he's never actually in danger of being Death Combo'ed. That is a very powerful tool against one of our bread and butters. He also definitely wins neutral. It's not a bodyfest because we can pressure him off stage really well and have a better chance than most of gimping him or at least making him eat a lot of damage before returning to a neutral position on stage. Also knowing what to do/what not to with Banana if you get it in your possession is really really important. I have played this MU a lot with Zinoto and he also plays Meta Knight. We agree its -1 for us.