Weekly Character Discussion: Diddy Kong

[Overswarm]

Diddy Kong.

Or you can do each individual character and synopsis on your lonesome and not have the best ROB player in the United States add to your discussion.

 

[Sintenal]

>_>

ok I play Diddy a lot, well what can I say about him

he's got a lot of great positive points, a very versatile tilt game. His ftilt has good range, decent amount of knock I usually use it when fsmash can not be reached. I love his utilt, its probably his most comboable moves. Ive done plenty of running attack, utilt, utilt, and an aerial. Plus its fast and seems to have more knock back than his usmash . his dtilt is also fast, i mostly use it cause it can sometimes go through shields and hit people if you manage to get their feet. I also like to dtilt into grabs. His smashes are alright not much I can say about them. His up smash is great after running attacks, down smash and fwd smash used in any real special situation that i can think of. They are fairly strong though.

His aerials are all nice, all are fairly fast. His fair is a nice kill move, but not one of the easiest aerials to hit with. His spike is very nice, im trying to figure out the timing with spiking people as they get off the edge as their trying to back on the lvl. Idk if this something I just got lucky with, but when i tryign this out I kept managing to spike people as they were trying to get back to the stage from the edge. mostly by jumping off the stage then as im jumping back id spike. Maybe im just lucky ;x

obviously Diddy's biggest advantage is his bananas. Glide tossing into grabs, smashes, or into another banana throw possibilities are endless with bananas ;x. It seems Diddy's success depends on how well he can control bananas, prevent his opponent from abusing his bananas. Bananas can also be used to do things like set off snakes grenades, bombs, even the bomb blocks in Green Greens. I've even managed to slip MK during his tornado with a banana. There plenty ways to combo with bananas, ive managed to do drop the banana, bair(grab banana), throw banana, follow up with whatever. Bananas also kidna deter people from chaingrabbing. For example when i played Joshu's dedede, he couldnt chain grab me cause i would have a banana behind me so he would trip if he tried to move forward. Shoudl also note that if a character is below a platform with a banana and he does an utilt(for example Snake or Dedede) they will trip.

Probably the reason why I enjoy Diddy so much is the bananas. Possibilities are endless ^_^, so many ways to set up people and it helps with killing people which is a problem a few characters(mainly snake >_>)

sure people will go into detail about his recovery problems, but ill go into more detail about his pros/cons when i dont have to worry about finals/papers ;x

 

[Overswarm]

I've been told that Diddy's up+B is a spike... is this true? I've seen it spike during the opening frames, but never after that.

 

[Sintenal]

his upB spikes on the Jets, when he goes up if you are below him you can be spiked, so it is pretty much when he intially does his launch. this doesnt work well on snake since his upB thingy(cant remember the name) hits him once you hit snake thus causing diddy to lose to rockets.

he can also spike with his fwdB by jumping once you latch on to the person, and you can still upB afterwards unlike when you use the simple hit that he can do.

 

[mathos]

Diddy's overb isn't a "spike". You latch on to them for a duration of time and you both fall together. There is significant hitstun from the move so the opponent is near the bottom of the stage once you get out or diddy uses his jump and it is extremely difficult for the opponent to recover if possible. But that is quite risky because if he misses his recovery isn't exactly amazing and will leave you open for an edgehog.

 

[Cort]

[...] and not have the best ROB player in the United States[...]

lol wat?

Diddy Kong can't kill for poop but once he gets 2 bananas going it's pretty hard to do stuff sometimes.

I don't have any decent experience vs Diddy to contribute to this discussion.

 

[g-regulate]

the only weakness of the bananas is that your opponent can simply pick them up and use them the same way diddy can, only with kill moves and such.

 

[Overswarm]

I know Diddy can pick up the bananas with his dash attack and his back-air. What other aerials can pick up the bananas? I've never played an excellent diddy, but I've always had an easy time against him with ROB since I could just do retreating neutral airs and auto-pick up his bananas when he threw them at me, and could then glide toss with the banana to approach.

banana is fun to type.

 

[Coen]

Gah, you guys keep popping up characters I don't have too much experience with.

Wait, I do have some experience against Diddys.

First off, I found his bananas to be quite annoying. You slip, but when you roll toward the banana you slip again so you can either get up with an attack, roll to the other side or simply get up. Imagine if Diddy also had a banana lying on that other side. What are your freaking options Diddy really has a lot of stage control with those yellow things, and this is just 1 situation out of many.

Furthermore, I actually found his Downsmash to be quite powerful when not stale. I know I was surprised when I looked at the % it killed me at but I don't exactly remember what % it actually was.
His dash attack is also godly, having virtually no lag and thus being very close to unpunishable. And it even combos into uptilt and stuff which makes up for a good lot of damage alltogether. Up-air seems to be a nice combo move, while bair does the same thing except horizontally. Fair seems to be a good offstage move to 'gimp' opponents and screw over their recovery. Peanut gun seems to be crap. Side-b makes for both recovery and a fairly annoying move. Don't know a whole lot about his throws.Sadly this is about as far as I can go vs Diddy.

 

[AlphaZealot]

Fair/Nair can pick up bananas, maybe the dair thought I've never tried with it because I usually nair or bair catch them.

Diddy is: great at combos, approaching, great air attacks, 3 spikes (though, as pointed out, the side b isn't quite a spike, but its good enough).
Diddy sucks at: killing. GOD AWFUL at killing people. If you can't land a spike, you likely won't be killing the other player until they reach the 140's or higher.

I'd write more but there is just too much other stuff on my plate right now.

 

[Undrdog]

If you can't land a spike, you likely won't be killing the other player until they reach the 140's or higher.

I play Pit and that just hurt AZ. A kill at a 140 is something I consider a blessing. However like Pit, Diddy Kong can rack up the damage due to his ability to attack continuously so hopefully that 140% should come rather quickly.

 

[mathos]

All aerials and air dodges can pick up bananas.

Bananas are really the only reason I attempt to play Diddy. I spam banana. If you can get around the barrage then you'll probably beat me. I see bananas just like lasers. In the early tournament setting they're a pain in the *** and its hard to learn a good approach. But as the community grows people will find ways to dodge them and bananas will just become a parlor trick. Throwing various directions, specific banana placement, and glide tossing all prove to mix up his tricks.

Just because other characters can pick them up doesn't really mean anything to diddy, unless they start throwing them. If the person is going near a banana its clear they're either 1) going to trip or 2) going to do a dash attack. By limiting your opponents options you already are at an advantage.

But as for kill moves I typically just use dsmash, fsmash, ftilt, fair, and bair. They're the most obvious ones and ftilt has surprising range and usually isn't stale.

 

[AlphaZealot]

yea ftilt is the ****. Uair kills an opponent who is already midway above the stage at decent percentages too.

 

[SamuraiPanda]

Diddy is one of the few characters in the game that I have 0 experience with or against. It seemed like everyone was in love with Diddy when the game came out, saying stuff like how amazing he is, and going bananas over his combos from the dash and stuff (pun intended). But now I hear nothing about him. The only person I see talk about the monkey on a regular basis nowadays is AZ. I've played him a little, and I can recognize he's got a ton of potential, but why does nobody seem interested in him anymore?

By the way, I've never seen a good Diddy player. Ever. Even in a video. You guys got something that shows him off?

 

[Overswarm]

All aerials and air dodges can pick up bananas.

Bananas are really the only reason I attempt to play Diddy. I spam banana. If you can get around the barrage then you'll probably beat me. I see bananas just like lasers. In the early tournament setting they're a pain in the *** and its hard to learn a good approach. But as the community grows people will find ways to dodge them and bananas will just become a parlor trick. Throwing various directions, specific banana placement, and glide tossing all prove to mix up his tricks.

Just because other characters can pick them up doesn't really mean anything to diddy, unless they start throwing them. If the person is going near a banana its clear they're either 1) going to trip or 2) going to do a dash attack. By limiting your opponents options you already are at an advantage.

But as for kill moves I typically just use dsmash, fsmash, ftilt, fair, and bair. They're the most obvious ones and ftilt has surprising range and usually isn't stale.

You can stop dashing and pick it up without doing a dash attack by just stopping your dash and hitting A. There's no lag to it, not hard to time. I do it with ROB and the gyro all the time.

 

[AlphaZealot]

Though I'm not amazing, these are pretty much the only videos of Diddy against high level players:
www.youtube.com/alphazealot
There is also a Cali player who plays with Gimpy, though I can't tell from videos whose better.

OS: As Diddy you should be trying to keep your bananas grouped together. Prevents people from doing what you are describing. Keeping them grouped offers *** tons of advantages too, the player on the opposite side of a set of grouped bananas is...not in a favorable position.

Diddy was popular prior to Brawls release, but for some reason within days of the game actually coming out almost no one was playing him, similar to Mario syndrome. He is way underrated at the moment, but that will change when they realize how anit-camping Diddy can be.

 

[Overswarm]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWnzfzLzfSo


this shows the grouping of bananas fairly well; I see what you mean.

 

[AlphaZealot]

Yea, that also shows the Uair kill at 140% at the end...

Diddy vs Wario is a good match up for Diddy, esp if the bike parts come, Diddy can get control over all the parts fairly quickly just by placing bananas near them, all of a sudden, you get 5 projectiles instead of 2, soooo deadly.

 

[ender]

Not that many pro warios but if you need to use the bike to get back you should jump off it before it gets back to the stage so you can use it again sooner, and also so your opponent cant use the tires.

just sayin...

 

[LeeHarris]

Reading all this has made me want to try Diddy.

Characters that have long range bairs like Sheik, Snake, DK, etc can often run off the stage and bair Diddy into the stage during his recovery. Other than that he is uber hard to gimp.

AZ, how do you think he does in doubles? It seems to me like he'd be good. Do you use banana's in doubles?

 

[SamuraiPanda]

Yeah, I was going to say something about that too, Lee. Based on what I've read (not what I've seen, as I haven't seen the vids yet) it just seems like Diddy would be an awesome team character, assuming your teammate can avoid the bananas and/or use them to their advantage as well. Plus, if Wario's bike parts are really that useful for Diddy, then is breaking his bike for the parts a viable team strategy?

 

[Sintenal]

diddy is great team character, as long as his partner can kill well ;x

diddy can rack up dmg very well, and as long you can control bananas well(and assuming your partner avoids them well) diddy can wreck in teams. I find myself throwing bananas at the person my partner is fighting to help him out a lot. Diddy is excellent support, i feel you need a partner that is good at KOing people to be with him like snake.

as far as good diddy players, I think Im good, could be wrong though >_>. Only broomer i played with Diddy really is joshu ;x

he best 2 ive seen far as vids are like pa0ol(or pao0l dont remember which) and AZ. Suppose Justin wong must be good if he got 2nd in a tourny with him, but i havent seen vids of him

idk, i live in the middle of nowhere atm for college, but i do get the jra64 who managed to destroy mr3000(so he says, at least beat him in the tourny) and took t-rex to the last game at Trashday. I usually beat jra myself *shrug*

 

[SamuraiPanda]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcw8PUZEr6Q

Holy crap. After watching that video, I'm honestly shocked that nobody plays with Diddy. That might have been the most annoying thing I've ever seen, which is awesome. Although, I can see why Diddy could be frustrating to play with since you put a ton of effort into that match, hitting him 2-3x more than he hit you, but you couldn't KO him. Hrm... Edgeguarding might be Diddy's best method of KOing. He has quite a long recovery when charged, so is his edgeguarding game viable?

Diddy is excellent support, i feel you need a partner that is good at KOing people to be with him like snake.

Sintenal, imagining a well-coordinated team of Diddy and Snake control the stage and pace with all the crap they can do... is just a scary thought.

 

[AlphaZealot]

He does amazing in doubles...so long as his parter can kill people. Diddy Lucario is good, Diddy D3, Diddy Snake not so much.

And, if the bike is on the stage...well...you don't let it get off the stage easily.

And yea, right around the 2:30 mark is really ******** banana stuff, though, thats true of most of the video/how I play.

Almost every match I've ever played with Diddy I'm usually +100 over my opponent, even when I lose. Usually comes out to around 450% a match.

And yea, the two things I've worked on since that video are more banana stuff and finally using glide tossing (I like, intentionally didn't want to use that **** for awhile, rofl), and edge guarding with spikes. You can really trick people up, if they think your coming in for a dair they may dodge, in which case just charge the upb, if they see you coming from the side, they may also make that same assumption, or may think your going to diddy hump them, which you can turn into an attack if they dodge by pressing a/b. Shrug, basically, you have 3 options, 3 1/2 if you count the hump turning into a kick, and then you have your standard bair/fair kill moves. Also, on the ground, you can short hop double B-air like Marth's double fair from Melee.

Also, at the start of this match: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoJ7ani-L2s

You can see the banana dash attack utilt usmash and why you basically can't defend the approach.

Finally: little known kill move for Diddy, if your at a high percentage, and the opponent is over about 120% on a stage like FD. You can fully charge your barrels and intentionally kill yourself on the side of the stage, and assuming the person is standing on the edge like most edge guarders would, the slash damage will actually hit and kill the opponent.

 

[DoH]

Playing Diddy is almost like playing Melee Peach; you trap people with your projectiles and you have to win a battle of attrition to win since your kills kind of suck.

 

[Undrdog]

Playing Diddy is almost like playing Melee Peach; you trap people with your projectiles and you have to win a battle of attrition to win since your kills kind of suck.

That's a good comparison and when I think of it in terms of the Tier List I force myself to wonder if the strategy that worked so well with Peach in Melee would've been possible without her amazing recovery. If not does this apply to Diddy Kong?

 

[Overswarm]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8FSTUrp98o

There's a decent Diddy. The Falco is just some scrub, I'm pretty sure.

 

[AlphaZealot]

So far characters that do good against Diddy:

Biggest countere is Falco: CG and reflector, the reflector shoots away from Falco and will turn banana's already on the ground into his own.
Otherwise, Lucus and Pit seem to also counter Diddy, can't really put my thumb on why the Lucus match up sucks, as for Pit, arrows keep banana spamming down and make it more difficult and the spin attack thing reflects banana and changes who controls them. Any character with a decent, fast projectile does okay against Diddy because it makes banana spamming much more difficult. I should note the Pit match up may change for me if I can start getting gimp KO's on Pits recovery, but its hard to do that against good Pit players.

Diddy can go mostly even with snake/d3/meta, tornado is beaten by banana/bair, d3 cg is beaten by keeping a banana behind you, snake is just a projectile game for both characters, its mad fun the Diddy Snake match up.

And yea, I use to play Peach, now I play Diddy...cause Diddy is like the new Peach.

 

[SamuraiPanda]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8FSTUrp98o

There's a decent Diddy. The Falco is just some scrub, I'm pretty sure.

That Diddy only really did one thing: use the bananas to create openings to attack. But he did that really well. I was surprised he didn't use the dash attack more, though.

After playing around with Diddy last night, I noticed he has a really fast turnaround, which you can use in conjunction with dash attacks, sliding d/f smashes, bananas, spot dodges, etc. to make a really annoying and unpredictable character. Also, saving either his Bair or Fair and using them as edgeguards seems to be one of the best ways to kill other than spiking IMO.

Diddy is really interesting. I may put more time into him when I have the opportunity, but I'm not sure if he's the kind of character I'd enjoy for long periods of time because it requires so much patience to play with him >_<

 

[AOB]

I haven't played against Diddy much, but being able to reflect the nannies (I play Zelda a lot) is really nice.

 

[Jump20X6]

Xanthius, a friend of mine who had the game early, mains Diddy. Oddly he stopped playing when the American version came out, becoming distracted by other games. (Mostly WoW)

I've found the most effection thing to do when fighting AGAINST a Diddy is to use the banana's against him. If you can manage to get both the bananas under your control then it completely reverses the game. It effectively cripples Diddy's dominant tactic. For that reason I always thought it was kind of dangerous for him to keep two bananas out at once. It opens up the risk of your opponent using your weapons against you much more than one banana alone could.

However, I haven't played against a Diddy since Xanthius stopped playing, so it's possible my concerns are null and void. AZ's videos show him using two banana's very effectively, as long he stays in control of them both. Pressure seems to be the name of the game. Once you let up for a few seconds you open the possibility of the bananas being taken by the other player.

Just my two cents.

 

[AlphaZealot]

Zelda's reflector is not very good against banana's though, it doesn't change who is in control of them, they get reflected but zelda can still slip.

 

[M3D]

Do Diddy's naners activate Lucario's Me First?

 

[AlphaZealot]

Umm..,
If that is Lucario's counter move, then yes, its really good actually to trick people into using that, then throw a banana, then punish the lag as they counter the banana instead of an expected attack.

 

[SamuraiPanda]

Doesn't Lucario do double team? I know Me First makes sense, and double team is like the last thing his down B should be, but I'm pretty sure it is.

And, uh, is Zelda's reflector the only one that doesn't switch ownership? I kinda wonder why it wouldn't...

 

[AlphaZealot]

Actually nevermind just tested it, it does switch...

I know someone can reflect bananas though and it doesn't switch, maybe its pits spin thing. shrug, must go look now.

 

[AOB]

Zelda's reflector is not very good against banana's though, it doesn't change who is in control of them, they get reflected but zelda can still slip.

I'm pretty sure that Diddy can slip on them when they've been reflected. Whether Zelda can still slip on them I don't remember.

So either it does indeed change ownership, or it makes the nannies neutral...? That doesn't make sense. Someone go find out.

 

[AlphaZealot]

just edited that..

 

[AlphaZealot]

Diddy combo video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkB37v7hINQ

 

[Sintenal]

http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?p=4394923#post4394923

thread showing diddy players tourny placings

Nanerz seems to be the only one to get 1st

think this type of topic could be useful in other character specific forums?