What are some good secondaries for the Banana Buddy

[WatchfulComa24]

I need a secondary that can cover some matchups diddy sucks at

 

[Lylo]

Pick Sheik is a good option I heard

 

[Legit]

Meta Knight. Covers pretty much all of Diddys bad MUs (Rosa/Villager/Olimar/Ness etc.)

 

[Diddy Kong]

Meta Knight. Covers pretty much all of Diddys bad MUs (Rosa/Villager/Olimar/Ness etc.)

I fail to see how Diddy struggles in those MUs. Elaborate please?

 

[Pazx]

I fail to see how Diddy struggles in those MUs. Elaborate please?

I only have a little bit of Olimar experience but those are definitely some of our harder matchups. The only one we outright lose is Rosa, but the rest require us to work a lot harder than usual.

 

[Diddy Kong]

I only have a little bit of Olimar experience but those are definitely some of our harder matchups. The only one we outright lose is Rosa, but the rest require us to work a lot harder than usual.

Villager and Ness definitely don't give me much trouble. We run circles around those kiddos. And our damage output on them after a grab is still better than any of their traps. Ness kills us off much earlier, sure. But unless he can effectively trap us, he's not winning.

And I still fail to see how we are beaten by Rosalina so badly... Maybe am just good at the overall matchup, cause I know how to handle Luma really well, but it was always (before the first nerf patch) a solid advantageous matchup for us because we could kill her so easily. With buffed U Smash being a real reliable kill option, I don't see why we'd have to struggle much.

Pikachu, Mario and Sheik seem harder than all these for me.

 

[Pazx]

Villager and Ness definitely don't give me much trouble. We run circles around those kiddos. And our damage output on them after a grab is still better than any of their traps. Ness kills us off much earlier, sure. But unless he can effectively trap us, he's not winning.

And I still fail to see how we are beaten by Rosalina so badly... Maybe am just good at the overall matchup, cause I know how to handle Luma really well, but it was always (before the first nerf patch) a solid advantageous matchup for us because we could kill her so easily. With buffed U Smash being a real reliable kill option, I don't see why we'd have to struggle much.

Pikachu, Mario and Sheik seem harder than all these for me.

I think Sheik being one of if not our hardest matchup is a given at this point, but Diddy also does better against her than most other characters do. With regards to Mario, the more I play the matchup the more I like it, I don't think it's in Mario's favour at this point so I'd put it in a similar vein as Ness and maybe Villager. You just have to play super safe and avoid landing directly on top of him, you should only really die in this matchup if you do something wrong or your opponent makes a good read.

I don't like the Ness matchup personally because I think Ness is probably the single best character in the game at gimping an offstage Diddy, if we go low we die and if we go high we eat ~20% if we're lucky. He also has significantly better grab reward than us at most percents and kills earlier than us in general, it's not a blowout but I can see it being maybe sliiiiightly in Ness's favour.

Villager again I don't think is strictly a disadvantage for us but it's a matchup we have to work a lot harder than usual in due to the fact that we can entirely lose bananas, it seems even (and aside from Rosa and Sheik all of Diddy's "tough matchups" are varying degrees of evenish).

Rosa is pretty bad IMO and I thought it was pretty bad prepreprepre-patch as well. Usmash is helpful but it doesn't really feel like enough. I haven't played the matchup in a little while though so once I do again I'll reassess my thoughts, tips would be appreciated I guess. How do you deal with Luma?

No Pika experience

The other matchups that might be bad for Diddy are Fox and Sonic (I know Seagull thinks Sonic wins this matchup handily). MK might be even as well. Otherwise we've at least touched on all of the disadvantaged and evenish matchups, the rest are probably all at least slightly in our favour.

 

[Diddy Kong]

How I deal with Luma is basically aiming at it with a Side B sexkick, which should send Luma flying. Afterwards, hit Luma with a F Air, or preferably B Air to send it off stage. For grounded moves, F Tilt is also nice but Luma most likely out-prioritises us if it's not stunned by hitstun, so it's more dangerous. Side B doesn't have this risk at all. I really love to approach Luma with Side B kick, as if it hits at the right position on the stage, Luma flies off immediately. For this alone, I do not regard Rosalina as much of a problem. Short hopped B Airs or F Airs are also good vs Luma.

Fox could be troublesome, but we can kill him very easy due to weight. It's a fun matchup, very high paced. And I also agree Sheik isn't actually too bad.

Ness might win in damage output and edge guarding, but we win in dealing raw damage. Ever hit Ness with a peanut when he tries to PK Thunder himself back to the stage? It takes some timing, but if you can predict it, it's amazing. Ness is also quite punishable for us, but on early %s, N Air could get in the way of doing grab combos. N Air, B Throw and PK Fire is basically all I fear as Diddy vs Ness.

 

[Terrabyte]

These are the matchups I find most troublesome for Diddy.

I deal with Rosa by hitting Luma with a peanut, F Throw Rosalina, and go onto F Smash or F Air Luma depending on where it is. Once Luma is gone, you can rack up damage on Rosa using your bananas and grabs until Luma respawns, and then rinse and repeat.

Sheik isn't that bad, as you can stop her mobility with bananas and then go for your grabs, and Sheik can't really do anything back unless she N airs at the right time. You can also do the Side B Kick as she goes for needles. But be aware that she can rack up damage with her F air if you are not careful.

Fast fallers can be troublesome, like Fox or Falcon, but you can generally do the same tactics and do fast fall F Airs to gimp if you need to.

I'll also mention both Mario Bros., in particular Luigi. Mario can catch you with his down throw combo and get you with around 50% to 70% if you're not careful. To get around this, you can pull out bananas at the start of the match and proceed to outmanuever him while racking up damage. Luigi can be even more dangerous, as I found Diddy is one of the characters that Luigi can do down throw + Up B on, which can rack up ridiculous damage. Also if Luigi knocks you down vertically, he can gimp you with his F air/ B air while you are charging Up B.

Ness is also mentioned, as Ness beats you in edge guarding, which is very troublesome as Diddy's Up B is very predictable. He can also keep you at bay using PK Fire, which keeps you from approaching from the ground. But you can rack up damage fairly easily, so try to do that as soon as possible. Hope these helped.

 

[Legit]

Villager Rosa and Olimar all **** on Diddy. Ness is the only one that someone could argue is close to even, but his gimp and air game are really strong. we only really beat him in the neutral (which is true of most chars). Any character that can **** on us in the neutral destroys Diddy, which Rosa and Olimar definitely do.

If Villager doesn't pocket our banana, you could argue the matchup is doable, but as soon as he grabs our banana, we lose. "Bait out the pocket" is not a viable strategy because it's pretty fast and while we have a banana in hand our options are reduced to throwing the banana and side b, and only one of those options beats pocket. Good luck beating a villager using only side b.

Sheik is obviously a ***** and everyone has problems with her. She is definitely one of our worst matchups.

As far as Pikachu and Mario go, I think you just need more MU experience? Both of those MUs are pretty even. Pikachu can't really do anything to us in the neutral (much like Ness), but he can't one-off us with a bthrow at 80 like Ness can. You need to be very careful offstage tho because Pikachu is one of the best offstage characters. As for Mario, we don't COMPLETELY shut down his neutral and his combos on us are huge, but he's less effective offstage. avoid landing on top of Mario's usmash and you shouldnt die very early. At worst it's a 55:45 for Mario.

 

[Diddy Kong]

That U Smash of Mario is sooo annoying when playing as Diddy. It breaks through so much stuff, it sometimes complicates things that really shouldn't be that much of an issue. Approaching with Side B is not something I'd advice to do. In general, when Side B approaches become limited in a matchup, we suffer because of it. The only matchups so far I can think of where this happens is Mario, because U Smash, and Pikachu, because of his size. I also think Mario beats us slightly, 55-45 seems a good description for the matchup. Fire Balls are also really annoying and makes our neutral far less effective.

 

[AvengerV]

Sheik is probably the best choice tbh. Beats or Goes even with all of Diddy's bad MUs. I am currently trying to improve my Sheik but not sure if she fits my playstyle since I like Fox and Diddy because of their kill confirms and options. Depends on your Playstyle i'd say.

 

[Diddy Kong]

I also really like Fox. How does he fare vs the Mario Bros. and Rosalina? Apparently Zinotto also stated that Meta Knight is a good secondary

 

[AvengerV]

I also really like Fox. How does he fare vs the Mario Bros. and Rosalina? Apparently Zinotto also stated that Meta Knight is a good secondary

The only problem with having Fox as a secondary is that he shares the same bad MU's as Diddy Kong except Villager. He loses badly against Rosalina. Mario and Luigi win the MU but not by much. Diddy however has a better MU against the top tiers like Sheik and ZSS than Fox does. I play Fox because of his good kill confirms and combos but honestly I would go with a character that can cover Diddy's bad MUs like Sheik, ZSS, or Ryu.

 

[Bullys]

Honestly the simplest answer is Shiek - she has all around solid match ups that cover Diddy's weakness. If you are putting / investing time into something she is likely worth it.

However, on the flip side, you'll face people that just straight up main the top character, who likely will have more experience in the mirror - so if you are having issues on your main vs that specific shiek main, likely the switch to the mirror won't help. (Though its worth noting some people dislike mirror matches).

I think its also worth elaborating on goals and levels you play at - as that keeps changing things as you progress.

For example, if you are a mid level player - the room you have before you approach a skill ceiling (assuming you are practicing and looking at improvement) is so huge that switching is actually not the best idea for match ups - if the opponents you are facing are similar / slight better/worse levels. By its very meaning you still have so much room to improve that your main isn't near "final form" that its better to dedicate to that, at its simplest, unless that opponent is a Nairo or ZeRo (or top player, take a grain of salt here) - just get better to win (I do not mean this in a rude manner, every single player who plays a game can get better - you hear world champs in sports and eSports alike saying this). With that said - there is value in beginning the journey in learning.

Lets quickly add in how far into your competitive learning are you. Would picking up a secondary be a quick catch up, that stage where you are really familiar with your main but not over all in the game, or at a point in the game where you have really good in depth knowledge of the the cast ... this follows up with:

As the levels rise then the amount of work you put in needs to be on par. For example, you are a pretty good player in your region, switching to another character for "match up purposes" will likely end up forgoing an absolute metric ton of experience, MU knowledge and likely skill level - you will be intentionally nerfing yourself to try and gain a MU advantage. In this situation, it goes without saying that it needs to be a WIP (work in progress) for a prolonged period of time - this is the other caveat to the above, while its not always beneficial to switch off while you are learning, everyone still likes to tinker.

This sounds really anti-secondary - and again I really don't mean that. I went through a big period in gaming where I was really focused on a single main - my eventual pick ups of secondaries came when my understanding of the game was so deep that I'd learned the others by proxy (I played team games) - often because I'd "designed" what my team mates had to do, so I knew their role inside out, or in roles I'd not played with, I knew what they had to do against me and transferred that knowledge. However, I'd always wished I'd just plodded along with those secondaries earlier just for enjoyment purposes.

I really don't think anyone expects to start winning MU's because they all of a sudden pick up a secondary - but its worth keeping an eye and idea on what will happen with regards to it, and being realistic. In Smash I am so far beyond playing competitive tourneys that I just like having a few characters to help me into my senile days - but competitive blood still runs through me so absolutely my choice in that was based upon how that would help me with Diddy.

 

[Diddy Kong]

So what we can conclude is that the best secondaries for Diddy are : MetaKnight, Sheik, Zero Suit Samus and Ryu? How about Ryu actually? What matchups does he cover Diddy is bad at? I don't like the time investment in the character to make him a secondary, also, I don't like him. Sheik is an obvious choice, but I don't like playing as her either (I seriously suck at playing Sheik, no joke, I tried).

Now what about Zero Suit Samus? She's not better at the Sheik matchup am quite sure, but does she beat Rosalina, Pikachu and Mario? Those are my biggest worries for Diddy advancement.

And how about Pikachu as a secondary? Is he worth the pain and stuggle of learning to play as a secondary? He also seems like a pain to learn, but not quite like Ryu.

Fox is fun yes, but I'd rather risk the bad matchups using Diddy.

I gotta say however I always win a lot vs Rosalina while I am using Ike. Ike is a secondary I feel very confident in for myself skill-wise. But he can't beat Top Tiers, that's a fact. Maybe if I would invest as much time into Meta Knight as I did with Ike I can cover my matchups better?

Characters I'm considering as secondary:
Current secondaries am confident in:
Characters am learning / am moderately skilled at:

If I'd drop all these 7 characters to learn just would that be better to improve my wins as a main? Btw, I'd rather just use than all those characters combined.

 

[AvengerV]

So what we can conclude is that the best secondaries for Diddy are : MetaKnight, Sheik, Zero Suit Samus and Ryu? How about Ryu actually? What matchups does he cover Diddy is bad at? I don't like the time investment in the character to make him a secondary, also, I don't like him. Sheik is an obvious choice, but I don't like playing as her either (I seriously suck at playing Sheik, no joke, I tried).

Now what about Zero Suit Samus? She's not better at the Sheik matchup am quite sure, but does she beat Rosalina, Pikachu and Mario? Those are my biggest worries for Diddy advancement.

And how about Pikachu as a secondary? Is he worth the pain and stuggle of learning to play as a secondary? He also seems like a pain to learn, but not quite like Ryu.

Fox is fun yes, but I'd rather risk the bad matchups using Diddy.

I gotta say however I always win a lot vs Rosalina while I am using Ike. Ike is a secondary I feel very confident in for myself skill-wise. But he can't beat Top Tiers, that's a fact. Maybe if I would invest as much time into Meta Knight as I did with Ike I can cover my matchups better?

Characters I'm considering as secondary:
Current secondaries am confident in:
Characters am learning / am moderately skilled at:

If I'd drop all these 7 characters to learn just would that be better to improve my wins as a main? Btw, I'd rather just use than all those characters combined.

I believe that Diddy Kong's biggest weaknesses are Rosalina, Sheik, and to an extent Villager. I don't think ZSS is that big of a threat to Diddy as Rosa and Sheik are. I think ZSS still wins but not by much. Honestly, I think MK and Sheik are the best choices overall due to MK's advantage over Rosa (imo Diddy's worst MU) and pretty good against the majority of the cast. Sheik is probably the best choice overall for obvious reasons but you said you aren't very good with her so I'd recommend MK since MK gets the job done against his worst MU considerably better than any other character you mentioned.