So can we all just admit Dedede went from being a good tiered character to F?

[modshroom128]

all of his best moves have been completely nerfed. his back air doesn't even exist anymore. the new "gordo toss" is literally the worst move dedede has now, gordos can be hit back at him with standard physical attacks and projectiles as well.

he was my main in brawl...
rip dedede's viability ;_;

 

[allshort17]

*Back air's just his forward air, which wasn't bad to begin with.
*It's easier to combo moves into and out of Nair.
*Dthrow still has combo potential. We all knew it would be changed, so let's be happy it's still useful.
*Pivot canceling allows him to dash into ftilt. Big bluff.
*Sending a Gordo straight up and letting it bounce for a little is good for stage control. Also, it's a strong projectile if not hit back. It's not useless.
*Dtilt still has good knockback, but rolls him forward. It may be as useful or more useful than his old one, but time will tell.
*Custom Gordo 3 is god-like for stage control and custom jet hammer 2 gives it super armor, making it have a use now. Customs aren't looking banable so far, so these are good options.

I hated the new Dedede too at first. I believe Brawl Dedede was a perfect character in terms of fitting an archetype (grappler) that smash didn't have. Looking at him now though, he has potential. He has a better combo game and potentially an equal or better zoning game with the use of gordos, dtilt, f-air, and pivot ftilt. He did get nerfted, but is not garbage.

 

[Mettie7]

um, I think most everyone (at least a week ago) could agree that Dedede is one of the better characters

 

[WingedKnight]

I had a similar shocked reaction at first. All of Dedede's best, signature moves were drastically altered or removed entirely. I saw a video of somebody playing as him and getting completely destroyed and I was crushed.

Here's the thing though: he received an entirely new set of viable tools in place of his old kit. Instead of a chaingrabbing monster with a spammable BAir and a great meatshield projectile, the new Dedede has awesome combo potential for a heavyweight, a powerful projectile you need to handle with care, and a great grab game even without his old DThrow. His new aerials are still quite good, SDDDJ is faster and more powerful, plus it ledgesnaps now, and if I'm not mistaken he may be even heavier than he used to be. Frankly, he plays like an all new character. We need to unlearn most of what we know about using the King, which is a bit of a bummer. That being said, general consensus is that he has improved greatly, in spite of it all. I definitely want to try him out for myself, but you need to keep an open mind and adapt. Dedede still has a ton of potential in Smash 4.

The only real travesty is the change of his purple outfit. I loved the black fur trim, it just isn't as stylish with the white...RIP.

 

[ぱみゅ]

The game is 2 weeks old, we can't make such statements just yet.

 

[HeavyLobster]

We really have no idea how good Dedede is. He's drastically different and hasn't been explored much at all. Let's at least wait and take the time to really examine what he can and can't do while the meta is young and worry about where he stacks up to the rest of the cast once we have some real information.

 

[shrooby]

As far as I can tell, we know little of Dedede's viability in general.
Not only has the game only been out for two weeks, but Dedede is also just not a very common character right now. We have so little gameplay of Dedede to even be able to judge his viability in any even somewhat reliable form.
On top of little gameplay, there just isn't a whole lot of research in general. We have little basis other than just looking at his moves being used by people who, frankly, don't have the best idea as to what they're doing simply because the game hasn't been out long enough, and then speculating how said moves will fair in practice. And I really don't think that's the most reliable thing to do.

I don't think the lack of research or videos is really due to people immediately labeling D3 as bad, either. I simply think many people just don't really have that much interest in the character, sadly.

So cut the King a break for now. At the very very very very absolute extreme bottom-of-the-barrel least wait until a few weeks after the international release to form an opinion. Though I really don't encourage that either.

 

[InfiniteTripping]

We really have no idea how good Dedede is. He's drastically different and hasn't been explored much at all. Let's at least wait and take the time to really examine what he can and can't do while the meta is young and worry about where he stacks up to the rest of the cast once we have some real information.

The thing is, discussions like this are part of determining how he is in the meta game. There isn't some arbitrary time when it becomes appropriate to talk about the strengths and weaknesses of various characters. It starts right from the very first play of the game.

 

[HeavyLobster]

The thing is, discussions like this are part of determining how he is in the meta game. There isn't some arbitrary time when it becomes appropriate to talk about the strengths and weaknesses of various characters. It starts right from the very first play of the game.

I'm not saying it's inappropriate to discuss strengths and weaknesses. I'm saying it's inappropriate to form a tier list when so much about the character himself isn't really known in depth. The Dedede boards(as well as plenty of other boards) are lacking so much in terms of basic character information such as frame data, hitboxes, potential combos, in-depth examination of move properties, especially custom specials, and plenty of other things about the character himself that dictate what he can and can't do, and I think that these things should be made a priority before comparing him to the rest of the cast. In particular I want to know whether his custom Side-Bs are as easy to deflect as the default, and unfortunately I don't have the game and haven't been able to find a good answer anywhere.

 

[theta64]

HI. i been on these forums before as an old name but i rejoined with a new name. so i guess a rewelcome again lol. But i have the japanese version of the game and I am CURRENT MAIN for dedede. I have to disagree about dedede being worse then before. I think he got a LOT BETTER then his brawl counterpart. his gordos are definitely a double-edge sword when it comes to using it, but deadly when put to good use. If you guys have any questions about dedede, ill be more then happy to answer them. Honestly dedede is deifnitely "A" tier or higher.

 

[InfiniteTripping]

I'm not saying it's inappropriate to discuss strengths and weaknesses. I'm saying it's inappropriate to form a tier list when so much about the character himself isn't really known in depth. The Dedede boards(as well as plenty of other boards) are lacking so much in terms of basic character information such as frame data, hitboxes, potential combos, in-depth examination of move properties, especially custom specials, and plenty of other things about the character himself that dictate what he can and can't do, and I think that these things should be made a priority before comparing him to the rest of the cast. In particular I want to know whether his custom Side-Bs are as easy to deflect as the default, and unfortunately I don't have the game and haven't been able to find a good answer anywhere.

Likely his customs will not rate into the tier list discussion. To simplify it and save time for all involved I think custom moves will not merit any consideration in competitive play. You're right there's a lot that is not known about Dedede. That's why the discussion is not without merit, because discussion brings some of these points up.

I can't really imagine that without his chain grabs that Dedede will be a very strong character. But I'll experiment with him when I get ahold of the game.

 

[KeithTheGeek]

Dedede has also received a decent number of changes in the transition to this game. He doesn't need the chain grab to be a strong character if his buffs outweigh his nerfs. His grab game is still very strong in PM for example, where you can no longer chain grab people and instead have to rely on follow ups and tech reads.

Obviously I can't say anything for certain without owning the game, but I don't think the transition has been as rocky for Dedede as some people think. I'm still a little iffy on the Gordos being as easy to reflect as they are, but it'll just be something to take into consideration when playing certain matchups. So who knows?

 

[HeavyLobster]

Likely his customs will not rate into the tier list discussion. To simplify it and save time for all involved I think custom moves will not merit any consideration in competitive play. You're right there's a lot that is not known about Dedede. That's why the discussion is not without merit, because discussion brings some of these points up.

I can't really imagine that without his chain grabs that Dedede will be a very strong character. But I'll experiment with him when I get ahold of the game.

I don't see any reason why customs wouldn't be allowed, at least on the 3DS version, as there have already been custom tournaments and they've worked out fine. None of the customs I've seen have looked blatantly broken, either. As far as Dedede is concerned, he looks much faster and has good range, so he's not as limited as he was in Brawl. Unfortunately his Brawl camping game is gone so he'll need to be played completely differently. He looks like he's more of a zoner than a camper/grappler now, though he still should have a good grab game. His tilts still look really good, and F-tilt looks like it can still mess with spacing-oriented characters. Uair is buffed and can kill, Dair spikes, and Nair is fast and appears to have combo potential. Fair and Bair have good range, and look to have usable speed if spaced well. He looks more like a conventional punish-based heavyweight and less like a keepaway character. The big concern here is how he handles projectile campers, as Gordos sadly don't provide the protection Waddle Dees did.

 

[mochiasta]

So he's a Dededestroyer now even more than before?

 

[Skymin50]

Dedede is in no ways bad. He just looks different, maybe plays a bit differently.

He's got a good shot at being high up there. Gordos are great to scare your opponent that's not anyone named Villager, and he's got some strong options.

 

[InfiniteTripping]

I don't see any reason why customs wouldn't be allowed, at least on the 3DS version, as there have already been custom tournaments and they've worked out fine. None of the customs I've seen have looked blatantly broken, either. As far as Dedede is concerned, he looks much faster and has good range, so he's not as limited as he was in Brawl. Unfortunately his Brawl camping game is gone so he'll need to be played completely differently. He looks like he's more of a zoner than a camper/grappler now, though he still should have a good grab game. His tilts still look really good, and F-tilt looks like it can still mess with spacing-oriented characters. Uair is buffed and can kill, Dair spikes, and Nair is fast and appears to have combo potential. Fair and Bair have good range, and look to have usable speed if spaced well. He looks more like a conventional punish-based heavyweight and less like a keepaway character. The big concern here is how he handles projectile campers, as Gordos sadly don't provide the protection Waddle Dees did.

I have talked to some people that help define and set the rules with competitive play and my understanding is that going through picking and counter-picking specials doesn't really help the goal of competitive play, which is for both parties to be operating on what is called perfect info. Suddenly you are not playing against one DK you are familiar with but several different combinations of DK which complicates the game and makes perfect info impossible. I think the tournaments you're speaking of must not be that serious, I'm sure they will exist, but I do not think the big money will be in those types of tournaments.

As for Dedede, I think less camping is generally a good thing so I do not shed a tear for Dedede's fallen Waddle Dee games.

 

[HeavyLobster]

I have talked to some people that help define and set the rules with competitive play and my understanding is that going through picking and counter-picking specials doesn't really help the goal of competitive play, which is for both parties to be operating on what is called perfect info. Suddenly you are not playing against one DK you are familiar with but several different combinations of DK which complicates the game and makes perfect info impossible. I think the tournaments you're speaking of must not be that serious, I'm sure they will exist, but I do not think the big money will be in those types of tournaments.

As for Dedede, I think less camping is generally a good thing so I do not shed a tear for Dedede's fallen Waddle Dee games.

You can easily have both parties operating on perfect info in custom tourneys, as there's only 3 options for each special, so it's easy enough to tell your opponent that your build is, for example, 3212 prior to the match. It's up to the player to keep track of the different customs and how to play against them. That seems like a really bad excuse to not allow custom specials, especially when they offer a lot of potential to improve the game's overall balance, as this thread explains.

 

[InfiniteTripping]

You can easily have both parties operating on perfect info in custom tourneys, as there's only 3 options for each special, so it's easy enough to tell your opponent that your build is, for example, 3212 prior to the match. It's up to the player to keep track of the different customs and how to play against them. That seems like a really bad excuse to not allow custom specials, especially when they offer a lot of potential to improve the game's overall balance, as this thread explains.

The thing is though, it is nine different possibilities for each character. That is a total, not even counting all the customization of the Miis, about 441 different possibilities to memorize. And then of course there are picks and counterpicks for every move set and it quickly becomes a time vampire to sort it all out and goes against the allure of competitive play, which is for perfect info. It is very hard to hold perfect info on 441 different possibilities. It is just much cleaner to have just one set of specials to memorize than to have nine different possibilities for each character.

(Actually I think you made a mistake here too. There are options for all four special moves, so this increases the possibilities dramatically to a point that is simply not capable of committing to memory.)

The thing you linked gets into probabilities and odds, which randomizes competitive play rather than keeps it to easily memorable movesets.

 

[allshort17]

You don't have to know all the combinations for every character when you only fight one character at a time. Whatever character you're against, you really have to know special 12 moves at a time. It's fairly simple to know how 12 moves work, considering most of the customs are slight variants of the existing move. This "memorization" problem will be further mitigated by the fact that both players will see the others customs (on Wii U) or there will be a rule in place where one has to show their build to the other player (3DS), so now you know the 4 moves your opponent will be using. If you still run into a move that you're magically still unaware of, it's up to you to go study it outside of the match. But, that's a given in any competitive game.

 

[InfiniteTripping]

You actually do have to memorize each separate combination unless you're saying that moves cannot be used to aid other moves and that they just exist on an island unto themselves, which isn't how it works I don't think. And yeah that's three times more moves, with tons of combinations of those moves, that you're glibly saying is "simple" to memorize. It goes against the competitive nature of the game to add so many button combinations that it effectively randomizes the game. It's like when Fischer announced his upgrade of chess, Chess960... it was a popular variant for awhile, but it was so randomized because each person started out with one of 960 possible starting positions that could not be memorized that it didn't catch on with the pros and it didn't even matter that you could see what position your opponent had, and ultimately retains about 5% of the players of regular Chess, if that. Add to that the issue of picking and counterpicking and quickly this becomes a time vampire.

 

[ndayday]

I think that's kind of a quick way to discredit customs. In a sense you can almost think of it as competitive Pokemon. There is a pool of moves (of which ours are considerably less) and the character you're up against could have 12 different moves. However there will be moves that are near useless so in the end, ideally you should have an idea of what the optimal set a Yoshi player would be running for example. Even though it's entirely possible that it's not that set and they're running something slightly different or to serve a different purpose I have yet to see custom moves that are created to "counterpick" other characters. As mentioned above they are more like alternate moves instead of completely broken yayy funnn moves. Like Villager loses his tree in one custom move in exchange for a sapling that trips people, or a lloid rocket that goes a different direction, or Bowser Jr. loses his mecha koopa's rolling ability and exchanges it for launching them in a set path.

So really, I don't see it being just a random battle of crazy moves you don't even know exist. Hardly ever are they drastically different and over time the ideal or cookie cutter sets will emerge.

we'll see though. I mean ultimately it's up to the TOs and players I guess

 

[InfiniteTripping]

I'll tell you I got a lot of this info from a guy named on GameFAQs, I can't remember his name but he is well-regarded in the competitive community. I might have misrepresented some of it but I get what he is saying about it. Basically it is like, Smash is a fighting game and not Pokemon. Fighting games rely on the competitors having perfect info of their opponents. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, introducing customization does randomize the game more than if the default were the only accepted move set. Because it simply is not possible to memorize every combination and master the timing of every opening that would result from the several hundreds of combinations.

Who knows, maybe I'm wrong about it but I don't anticipate customization working out in a competitive setting.

 

[allshort17]

Just because something is a possibility, doesn't mean it's a probability. For example, Jiggs has 81 possible variants like everyone else. However, no matter which up-b you pick with her, it's still a bad move. Essentially, all the different possibilities with the 3 up-bs are the same since the moves won't be used in any case, so she now has 27 realistic variants. The same uselessness could be said about her neutral-b, leaving her with really 9 builds. Even then, the useful of the different side-b's and down-b's are varying greatly, with there already being a pretty useless option for those moves compared to the others.

She is a special case, since she really hasn't been too reliant on her b moves to begin with, just the occasional rest or slap (though I will admit Melee Jiggs was based around rest.) There are characters like Paletena who have a variety of good moves, giving her more viable builds than most. Then again, she is the only character aside from Mii Fighters that has completely unique customs. A more standard case would be Ganondorf. His customs also give him multiple viable builds.

On average, about half the customs for a given character will be viable. After that, there will be probably around 3 viable builds for each character and one or two builds useful for counterpicks. With 3 real builds for each character, the game will just play like any other game with multiple character options, like Melty Blood's moons or Mortal Kombat X's style options. For the situational cp builds, it's up to the player to learn those builds that will be purposefully used against the player's character(s). If a character has an abundance of viable customs, then good for him or her; it's just a positive trait that the character has. It will be balanced out by the fact that there will be a character stuck to only using 1 or no customs.

Yeah. I know my numbers are arbitrary and the meta could evolve where the average number of competitive builds are higher or lower. It was just to show that it is unreasonable to believe that every variant will actually be used.

 

[InfiniteTripping]

The thing is your example is not really illustrative of the problem. You picked a move that will never be useful in any sense, but really it isn't black and white like that all the time. A move can be partially useful, if paired with another move, or if it introduces a certain unpredictability with this move or that move. The point is people may start building characters that make them unpredictable and add that random element to the game.

 

[HeavyLobster]

If this game is anything like every other competitive game with custom options, it's ultimately just going to come down to a relatively small number of optimal builds. Let's assume that with 51 characters, including each Mii variant, each character has between 1 and 3 optimal builds, and that these are evenly distributed across the cast so that 17 characters have 1 optimal build, 17 have 2, and 17 have 3. In total, that's 102 builds to deal with. Going by Melee's balance, let's say that only 25% of these builds are actually good enough to win a national tournament. This leaves us with 25-26 matchups that everyone has to learn to have a chance at winning, which is fewer than what Project M has. There will still be plenty of good builds/characters beneath those that see some success, but don't provide the same consistent results. Sometimes an under-the-radar build will see success because people don't know how to deal with it, but this won't last long as players will adjust. Gimmick builds that rely on their unpredictability for success generally don't have a good track record, and fundamentally are no more random than playing a mid-to-low tier character that no one ever sees in tournament settings.

 

[Jabejazz]

all of his best moves have been completely nerfed.

Even I can't troll this hard.

I legit fell for it.

 

[MontyMonterson]

Just played a couple of For Gory matches with him and damn I love his playstyle. I'm far from the most competitive player out there and I almost never used him in Brawl but I really enjoy side smashing people to death when they're at 50% and I'm at like 150%. The Gordo's seem very high risk-reward but they're great tools for edgeguarding.

 

[Fex13]

dedede is NOT bad.... he is actually pretty good. high tier for me

 

[Jabejazz]

dedede is NOT bad.... he is actually pretty good. high tier for me

Just like it's too early to call him ****, it's too early to call him high tier as well.

The ONLY thing we can say for certain is that most of his kit buffs outweight the nerfs, and make him a better overall character than the chain-grab one-trick pony he was in Brawl. he got more buffs than nerfs.

Thing is, a lot of the cast got buffed as well, so we can't place him anywhere on the tier list.

**** like this when people jump the gun when we have no frame and MU data annoys me so much.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Dedede honestly looks mid tier to me. His size and lack of speed are liabilities against a lot of the top characters in the game, and he can't use his Gordos for camping, but his punish game is pretty impressive, and he does a lot of damage once he gets ahold of you. He's not trash by any means.

 

[Usopp]

Being both a brawl and pm dedede player. I can say i love him in the new game. i feel like if played like he did in brawl he would be to op. so i think he fits into the new game well. i find myself using back air and nair alot. there great moves. as well as foward tilt

 

[Percentful]

At first I didn't like the new Dedede, but he grew on me surprisingly fast. It's true - his Bair isn't as good and his Utilt is nowhere near as powerful as it was, but I think he has more usable moves as a whole now.
Both Dsmash and Usmash seem to have gotten a boost. Both seem less laggy, and DSmash actually hits things at a decent trajectory now.
(Edit: After looking closer, they are WAY faster than brawl in startup and ending lag.)
Dtilt also has a useful trajectory, and comes out pretty fast. Ftilt knocks people just a bit harder than it did in brawl.
Jet hammer is much stronger, and generally a bit easier to land with in my opinion. It's still just a gimmick, but it's more viable than in Brawl where FSmash was always a stronger option.
His aerials are just different. Bair isn't the quick, wonderful kick it was in Brawl, but it's still useful. It's basically his brawl Fair, but faster. Uair (as well as his jab) is actually useful because of the lack of smash di. Dair gives him a stronger gimping option, which is very nice given the edge guarding nature of this game.

My only real complaint is that his back throw lost some raw damage. I loved the free 16% in brawl. Overall, I think his playstyle will definitely be different, but I feel as though heavyweights have a place in this game now, and Dedede is no exception.

 

[greatbernard]

Dedede started at B tier, went to A tier and then went to C tier in Brawl. But he's always been in the upperhalf.

I think since SSB4 emphasizes speed, there's much more agile characters that can exploit Dedede's weaknesses.

I still don't think Dedede is in the bottom 10 though. He's probably mid-tier.

 

[Jabejazz]

I think since SSB4 emphasizes speed,

What makes you say that.

If anything, the game is slightly faster than Brawl on the ground. It's still slow as **** in the air.

 

[WertQuadNine]

I actually like him more...his side-B is great now.

 

[pidgezero_one]

Going fast is actually illegal in smash 4.

So he's a Dededestroyer now even more than before?

WAIT A SECOND, INSERTING DEDEDE INTO WORDS WAS MY CLAIM TO FAME

 

[dskank]

if not going to read any of this thread, but i will say this. if you think ddd is a bad character, you are bad.

 

[Jabejazz]

if not going to read any of this thread, but i will say this. if you think ddd is a bad character, you are bad.

no u

Going fast is actually illegal in smash 4.

WAIT A SECOND, INSERTING DEDEDE INTO WORDS WAS MY CLAIM TO FAME

I know right, it's dededespicable.

 

[pidgezero_one]

no u



I know right, it's dededespicable.

u had me at d, bb

 

[Jabejazz]

u had me at d, bb

This is the kind of post where I usually come with a super witty, 999999999999999 out of 10, would read again, reply.

And I got nothing.

I admit dededefeat.