What to do against Diddy?

[Mad Zephyr XXVII]

Hello everyone,

I just got out from playing online and I stumbled upon a great Diddy player. I won't lie, but I struggled a lot. One single grab led me into accumulating so much damage and it always left me at a very high percentage... and not to mention that banana. I've lost many matches, but I won a few after changing up my play style and noticing some patterns.


The question is, for us Samus players, what can she do against Diddy?
I'd love to hear your experiences.


I personally found out that pressuring Diddy when he is off the stage is your best bet on K.Oing him. Use the Neutral Air. If you get a grab, follow it up with multiple Up-airs when you get the chance and use the Z-air. As dangerous as it sounds, I was in rage-mode (high percentage) most of the time when I had my K.O.s and with some tricky charged shots, I was able to get him off the stage. Once you're in the offensive during aerial combat, bait out the air dodges and punish.

One thing that I've also noticed is that they'll often go for the grab, which will leave them wide open for a second. Use a lot of mind games; I had to change my way of playing, trying to find a method on landing AWAY from Diddy whenever I was sent flying.

 

[FlAlex]

Hello everyone,

I just got out from playing online and I stumbled upon a great Diddy player. I won't lie, but I struggled a lot. One single grab led me into accumulating so much damage and it always left me at a very high percentage... and not to mention that banana. I've lost many matches, but I won a few after changing up my play style and noticing some patterns.


The question is, for us Samus players, what can she do against Diddy?
I'd love to hear your experiences.


I personally found out that pressuring Diddy when he is off the stage is your best bet on K.Oing him. Use the Neutral Air. If you get a grab, follow it up with multiple Up-airs when you get the chance and use the Z-air. As dangerous as it sounds, I was in rage-mode (high percentage) most of the time when I had my K.O.s and with some tricky charged shots, I was able to get him off the stage. Once you're in the offensive during aerial combat, bait out the air dodges and punish.

One thing that I've also noticed is that they'll often go for the grab, which will leave them wide open for a second. Use a lot of mind games; I had to change my way of playing, trying to find a method on landing AWAY from Diddy whenever I was sent flying.

I agree with your assessment. Diddy does not have much in terms of recovery except for his predictable sideB and punishable Up B. Diddy is easy to gimp and since Samus is jump master, this should be easy (if you aren't as bad as I am).

I bait the banana throw. item throws are not very effective in this game and I generally like to bait them to throw it against my shield, spot-dodge it so the banana goes past me leaving me in between the opponent and the banana.

Diddy lacks range so rely on you tilts and Zair.

When you get down thrown for an up air, try to DI out of the way. It's okay to take one or two of those combos. They do good damage but that's Diddy's only great combo. After about 50% that combo won't work reliably. His UpAir is still really good though so fake them out with bomb drop to stall and cause them to whiff their attacks.

Correct, as with every MU, Samus needs to land AWAY from her opponents.

I don't go against many diddy's so I am afraid I am of little use in this MU.

Best of luck!

 

[Darthrai]

Not sure if this is useful, but everyone knows how much better ZSS is than Regular Samus, especially against faster characters.

If you want to do something cool and within the spirit of Samus' character, learn to play ZSS. Since she's a smart and adaptable bounty hunter, it's easy to imagine how she'd shed her armor to deal with faster foes, especially that annoying s***monkey.

 

[FlAlex]

Not sure if this is useful, but everyone knows how much better ZSS is than Regular Samus, especially against faster characters.

If you want to do something cool and within the spirit of Samus' character, learn to play ZSS. Since she's a smart and adaptable bounty hunter, it's easy to imagine how she'd shed her armor to deal with faster foes, especially that annoying s***monkey.

The majority of us do not like Zamus due to her over-sexual appearance and our anger at how under-powered Samus is even with a powerful suit on. I see your logic. Have Zamus as a secondary for the spirit of Metroid and to counter Samus' weaker MUs but that isn't likely to happen for the majority of this community. Samus mains are stubborn. Need to be to use Samus competitively.
(For me, its not just the sexuality thing but also because I hate using Zamus' moves. She feels clunky to me. I have Pikachu for MUs like this.) I appreciate the suggestion though.

 

[Squaddle]

She can get hoo-hah'd

...

But seriously tho, not much. Being a floaty, relatively tall character samus has an extremely difficult time with fast, small/crouching characters like diddy, shiek, and greninja. I've found that bombs are very good at messing with diddy's ground game, as they stay on the screen quite a while and can disorient the opponent if they explode on them. The occasional zair and homing missile are also pretty good at stopping an attack, but imo bombspam's the way to go.

 

[GdspdUblkprzdnt]

• Super missile covers monkey flip.
• Although it's hard to play like this under the insane pressure Diddy Kong afford us, remember you can hold his banana and us Zair, Ftilt, and Fsmash along with our missiles and CS.
  
  Holding on to his banana even for just a little bit means he has one less kill set up and he'll either play more carefully so as to not get banana'd or he'll play more aggressively to get it back. Either way, Samus has tools to force approaches and to punish blind rushdowns.

 

[Xygonn]

Utilt is also good against monkey flip if you can get the read. Especially vs. offstage recovery monkey flips.

 

[Mad Zephyr XXVII]

I'm loving the replies I am getting here. Thank you very much.

I've noticed that her U-tilt is very efficient whenever Diddy uses his side-B to recover.

I had Zamus as a close secondary whenever I was against fast characters such as Fox, Falco, etc, back in Brawl. She feels a tad different in the new version.

 

[Xygonn]

I got my ass handed to me by diddy this morning. I was being too aggressive and the guy left after two stocking me. He used a different pattern than most diddies I face. Lots of SHFFLing fair. I did surprise him several times by jabbing his banana then stopping his follow up. Guy left after beating me though, so I didn't even have time to adjust to his patterns

 

[Darthrai]

The majority of us do not like Zamus due to her over-sexual appearance and our anger at how under-powered Samus is even with a powerful suit on. I see your logic. Have Zamus as a secondary for the spirit of Metroid and to counter Samus' weaker MUs but that isn't likely to happen for the majority of this community. Samus mains are stubborn. Need to be to use Samus competitively.
(For me, its not just the sexuality thing but also because I hate using Zamus' moves. She feels clunky to me. I have Pikachu for MUs like this.) I appreciate the suggestion though.

I agree. Sakurai really didn't know how to balance the game properly. Samus should be one of the most powerful characters, period; he probably only paid attention to how flashy and powerful-looking her moves would be to kids and casual players rather than making sure she'd live up to her reputation in high-level play.

Then again, I appreciate how Zamus in this game is still a cool, tough and moderately attractive woman rather than the petite, whiny animu abomination we got in Other M, and how she lets a version of Samus be top-tier.

 

[Afro Smash]

I mean game balance should always come before realism, it doesnt annoy me that samus is stronger in this game without her suit, it just annoys me that shes stronger because its unbalanced from a gameplay perspective. Also yeah short Fair pressure from diddy kong is super hard to deal with, unfortunately ive only had the (dis)pleasure of playing 1 competent diddy kong so far, despite how good he is, so not had much chance to practice the match up.

I will say that if you shield a banana, they will almost always run in to try and grab after, so if you pre emptively grab yourself u can usually catch them as they run in and start your own combo. Also jumping out of hoo hah is safest at kill percents imo, since it avoids the air dodge mind game all together

 

[Xygonn]

I usually DI up, dodge, then bomb and try to get to a ledge. I seem to be pretty good at getting out of the Hoo Hah. In fact, it's mostly the diddy's that rely on that combo that gave me the impression diddy wasn't such a bad matchup. That fair pressure was wrecking me though as well as the skid canceled dtilt. Ugh, hits on frame 4 and is better than diddy's jab.

 

[etecoon]

I agree. Sakurai really didn't know how to balance the game properly. Samus should be one of the most powerful characters, period; he probably only paid attention to how flashy and powerful-looking her moves would be to kids and casual players rather than making sure she'd live up to her reputation in high-level play.

Then again, I appreciate how Zamus in this game is still a cool, tough and moderately attractive woman rather than the petite, whiny animu abomination we got in Other M, and how she lets a version of Samus be top-tier.

If the game was balanced according to canon then it would be hilariously unbalanced, Samus would be stronger, faster, more agile, and more durable than almost the entire cast and Ness and Mewtwo would be literally godlike characters with Ness already being banned at this point

Actually for the fact that Samus is supposed to be very agile and quick even with the suit, ZSS has no reason to exist in these games. As much as I appreciate a woman wearing basically nothing, she's just a reminder of the worst Metroid game and the worst part of Zero Mission, probably better fanservice for non-Metroid fans than Metroid fans

 

[FlAlex]

If the game was balanced according to canon then it would be hilariously unbalanced, Samus would be stronger, faster, more agile, and more durable than almost the entire cast and Ness and Mewtwo would be literally godlike characters with Ness already being banned at this point

Kinda funny that they suck in Melee.

 

[etecoon]

Kinda funny that they suck in Melee.

Ness was really good in 64...at least around the time of Melee's development, I've heard he's not so good in the current metagame? But the nerf made sense at the time I think, though the balance in Melee and Brawl was pretty wonky and even in Smash 4 some of the buffs and nerfs make no sense

I'm really hoping for Mewtwo to be one of the top characters this time around. I didn't follow pokemon beyond RBY but Mewtwo was a beast in those games. He'll need a great moveset though, already has being tall and light as a bad combination and he doesn't have a gimmick mechanic like Rosalina to completely disrupt normal gameplay

 

[FlAlex]

Ness was really good in 64...at least around the time of Melee's development, I've heard he's not so good in the current metagame? But the nerf made sense at the time I think, though the balance in Melee and Brawl was pretty wonky and even in Smash 4 some of the buffs and nerfs make no sense

I'm really hoping for Mewtwo to be one of the top characters this time around. I didn't follow pokemon beyond RBY but Mewtwo was a beast in those games. He'll need a great moveset though, already has being tall and light as a bad combination and he doesn't have a gimmick mechanic like Rosalina to completely disrupt normal gameplay

can't say i know much about 64. Mewtwo isn't that great in the future generations. Psychic types fell from grace and the only reason why he is (probably) in ubers on Smogon is because of his insane stats (though other pokemon can top his now).
I do hope Mew2 is better in Smash4 than he is in melee. I'm hoping he will basically be an aerial Samus that can handle other projectile spammers.

 

[Xygonn]

Ness was really good in 64...at least around the time of Melee's development, I've heard he's not so good in the current metagame? But the nerf made sense at the time I think, though the balance in Melee and Brawl was pretty wonky and even in Smash 4 some of the buffs and nerfs make no sense

I'm really hoping for Mewtwo to be one of the top characters this time around. I didn't follow pokemon beyond RBY but Mewtwo was a beast in those games. He'll need a great moveset though, already has being tall and light as a bad combination and he doesn't have a gimmick mechanic like Rosalina to completely disrupt normal gameplay

I mained ness in 64. His gimmicky recovery is super easy to gimp by jumping into the thunder in the previous three games including 64 relegating him to low tier. The PKT1 invincibility frames in this game make him considerably more viable though villager and rosalina are basically hard counters with pocket and gravitational pull gimping PKT1 badly.