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Matchup Thread Export: Donkey Kong

UTDZac

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DONKEY KONG



DIFFICULTY: EVEN - 50:50

Quick Tips
  • Down-smash after down-throw? Sometimes, it's weird.
  • Bucket anything? NO
  • If DK grabs you into a cargo hold, simply hold up and you will pop out (this is faster than trying to mash out). Be careful though, if you are at high percent, DK will still be able to carry you off the ledge.


Videos
  • N/A


General Matchup
  • Donkey Kong's major strong suits are his weight, power, and range. He'll be using all of these to their maximum extent to take you down so learn how to get around them or to cope with them.
  • DK's priority is pretty well matched up with his range. Most of his attacks aren't disjointed like gw's are however, which will allow you to win in most cases. If your attacks collide, either expect to win or for them to cancel out. The only time dk will hit you through your attack is if he has invincibility frames, super armor frames, or he simply went around your hitbox somehow.
  • DK's power is nearly unmatched in this game. Only characters like ike and ganon can really compete in terms of strength, although not even close in speed. DK is loaded with kill moves that can strike gw down in the early 70's, even 60's depending on placement. Downsmash and neutral b are probably the most devastating ones. Downsmash is quite good because it is extremely fast out of the shield, hitting above him in what seems like just a few frames. This move kills upward in the 70's for gw, and has a surprising amount of range. The neutral b, when charged, gets SA frames, which can really throw off how you approach DK. A fair that looks like a free hit will turn into an early demise if you aren't careful. Other kill moves of note are fsmash (really incredible forward range), upsmash (good range, fairly quick), up air and bair sometimes (although usually used a lot so not often killed with).
  • Dk's recovery looks pretty terrible at a glance, but upon further inspection, its not half bad. Im pretty sure that the first 10 frames or so of the move grant invincibility frames, the move hits a lot for a lot of damage, covers more vertical distance than in melee, can cancel well for combos near the stage. Dair from above will def knock him out, but good spacing w/ the fair and bair will be needed.
  • Dk's edgeguarding usually involves aggressive bairs, or up b's that are started off the stage and then maneuvered in. Both of these would require dk not to go too far down, which means your in the clear for most situations.
  • Dk's combo game is somewhat lacking, although thats not where he specializes. It isn't too unusual to see some nifty bair combos, up air combos, although these will be harder for DK to unleash on gw because he is so small.
  • Dk has a large frame, is fairly heavy, fun combos : )


Basic Strategies
  • Your biggest problem in this matchup will be competing for the range. Ftilt, fsmash, bair, dtilt, and down b all have enormous ranges that match yours. You'll find yourself keeping your spacing tight if you want to land hits to start combo's up. If the dk plays right they'll be able to punish you for messing any of your spacing up w/ down b's and the works.
  • The second biggest problem? winning the percent game. In order to beat dk's you need to minimize the amount of damage you take, and maximize theirs. This seems obvious to beat any character, but because the weight gap between the two characters is much larger than most matchups, this because quite the issue. He'll be killing you in the 70's, you'll be killing him in the 110's most likely. Theres a good 40% you need to make up on every stock, putting you at a disadvantage, keep that in mind.
  • If your opponent is very precise with the neutral b's SA frames, then you could be in a lot of trouble. When he has his punch charged up, you need to avoid approaching mindlessly, no matter how good your spacing is. Learn to empty your shuffles into grabs, or learn to air dodge through him into grabs to keep them on their feet. If they think theres a good chance that you'll drop in for a grab, then they won't be so eager to throw the donkey punch around.
  • Whenever possible, learn to keep the match controlled in the air. GW's aerials will blow dk's out of the water in almost every situtation. Bair is the only real pain, only because its so fast and has so much range. Fair, nair, dair, and up air either don't have enough range, have no priority, or are too slow to compete with gw's aerials.
  • Although i've been raving about Dk's speed, don't compare the two. GW is miles ahead of dk's speed, i just don't want you to underestimate how fast dk can be. Learn to use your superior aerial mobility to weave in and out of dk's range to score hits and combos.
  • Make good use of the chef in this matchup, especially when dealing with a fully charged donkey punch. Chef will cancel out his approaches, he's huge, so he can't just avoid them.
  • Best thing to do against a recovering dk is to try and get as much damage in as possible. He's pretty difficult to gimp, so settle for racking up that extra damage you'll need to kill him. Fair/bair/dair should all knock him out with proper spacing.


Stages
  • Moving stage = huge advantage. Take him to rainbow cruise, place has a lot of vertical movement, lots of places for him to die. Frigate orpheon would also work really well i imagine.
  • Avoid stages with small boundaries as you'll die way to early here to make a dent on the DK. Also, if your teching game isn't spot on, stages with lips could pose a problem as well. Any stage with a walk-off ledge may also want to be avoided because of the cargo throw setups he can utilize.


Frame Data
  • Neutral B: 18 (charged, super armor 17-20) or 25 (uncharged)
  • Side B: 20
  • Up B: 4, 12, 20, etc (+8, aerial) or 19, 24, 29, etc (+5, grounded)
  • Down B: 19, 30, 46, 57, etc... (+11, +16)
  • Fsmash: 22
  • Dsmash: 10
  • Usmash: 14
  • Ftilt: 8
  • Dtilt: 6
  • Utilt: 5
  • Nair: 10
  • Fair: 25
  • Bair: 7
  • Uair: 6
  • Dair: 18
  • Jab: 5, 16
  • Dash Attack: 9
  • Standing Grab: 8
  • Dash Grab: 10
  • Pivot Grab: 10
 

A2ZOMG

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G&W has got this matchup easily on BF.

Throw DK offstage, stand on the platform, and D-tilt ALL DAY.

He has NO OPTIONS to get up from this. He can only ledgeroll to avoid the D-tilt, which is HEAVILY punishable by a kill move. If he tries to recover higher, Smash him in the face. Onstage this is a valuable spacing tactic to keep in your pocket. Learn to buffer fullhops to platform spaced D-tilts for this matchup and you'll really mess up DK's game a lot since this actually hits him when he's standing below the platform.

I think G&W wins like 65/35 on BF.

And generally speaking, N-air out of shield, don't get baited by smashes, don't get baited by the <100% ledge getup attack (it crosses you over on shield, so turnaround to punish it), don't get baited by airdodge -> u-tilt, punish his airdodge conservatively with N-airs/U-tilts, and this shouldn't be a difficult matchup.

Oh yeah and his shield sucks and fullhop spacing owns him a lot.

DK wins like 8/2 against everyone that doesn't have matchup experience, so just keep that in mind. You have to know his random tricks and where to apply good reaction time, but the matchup instantly becomes favorable once you learn wtf is going on.
 

Splice

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Down-smash after down-throw? Sometimes, it's weird.
LOL too true :laugh:

DK wins like 8/2 against everyone that doesn't have matchup experience, so just keep that in mind. You have to know his random tricks and where to apply good reaction time, but the matchup instantly becomes favorable once you learn wtf is going on.
Also very true. So was the rest of the post.

btw I wouldn't CP Frigate Orpheon, but that might just be me? I've always had problems manouevering stages with a large central platform like Halberd, YI and Frigates second transformation, and this seems to affect me when I play (or played, its been a while) DK. I'd CP Battlefield or Delfino.
 

A2ZOMG

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Frankly, this matchup is easier than Lucario...srsly, I don't get why people say this matchup is even, and then go out of their way to say Lucario is an easy 60/40.

Lucario probably isn't quite that easy, since he has a lot of dumb stuff that makes it hard to trap him. Donkey Kong on the other hand is fundamentally a better matchup for G&W, one that I would think G&W might win 6/4. All of DK's kill moves are hella unsafe (besides the Giant Punch which is safe on block fully charged, and still pushes back far when you powershield it) and can be avoided just as easily, if not more easily than Lucario's KO moves for the most part, and he is much worse at walling out G&W in general. It's over 9000x easier to juggle DK and set up Smashes, and he's like the easiest character ever to edgetrap and damage offstage.
 

A2ZOMG

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Yeah it's a combo on everyone.

Don't bother trying to escape it. You can't.
 

Today

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This matchup is totally not even! D':
Uhg! TT__TT I think it's like 60:40 DK or at least 55:45 DK favor!
His bair beats my bair.
And GnW gets killed so early when DK gets killed so laaate. I never know what to do..

I think it's better on stages like Battle Field because nair works so greatly and you can key through the platforms..

but he kills me so early.. ;..;
I really dislike fighting DKs.
 

A2ZOMG

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DK isn't hard. N-air out of shield all day. He really can't approach you safely, and you can force him to approach with Chef.

Fullhop B-air/F-air his shield, U-tilt and N-air his airdodge. U-air -> Smash is amazing.

LEARN TO ****ING EDGETRAP HIM AND DON'T GET BAITED BY AIRDODGE -> U-TILT. I want to stab myself every time someone GETS HIT by DK's <100% ledge attack and fails to punish it. If you go up to the ledge and shield, there is pretty much nothing he can do to get up safely. You can REACT to all of his edge getups easily, and G&W can punish DK extremely hard in this way and score kills extremely easily. You can shieldgrab him on reaction if he edgestands. You can do aerial on reaction if he edge jumps. Turnaround -> anything punishes the <100% edge attack. As well as the edgeroll for that matter. If he's at a KO percent, you can charge Smashes if you believe he's not going to do an edge attack. Generally speaking though he's screwed on the edge by shield.

Almost every G&W I see in this matchup just loses to random matchup inexperience shenanigans like getting baited by his U-tilt, failing miserably at edgeguarding/juggling him, and not using enough N-air out of shield in general...
 

Big O

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G&W has got this matchup easily on BF.

Throw DK offstage, stand on the platform, and D-tilt ALL DAY.

He has NO OPTIONS to get up from this. He can only ledgeroll to avoid the D-tilt, which is HEAVILY punishable by a kill move. If he tries to recover higher, Smash him in the face. Onstage this is a valuable spacing tactic to keep in your pocket. Learn to buffer fullhops to platform spaced D-tilts for this matchup and you'll really mess up DK's game a lot since this actually hits him when he's standing below the platform.

I think G&W wins like 65/35 on BF.
I just wanted to point out that the scenario you mentioned isn't really as foolproof or inescapable as you make it out to be. Depending on how you are spaced, DK can simply ledge drop DJ and air dodge safely on the stage. If G&W is close enough to where even landing on the corner of the ledge is unsafe, then DK could just ledge attack to clash with the Dtilt spam. Even if DK rolls for some reason, spamming Dtilts on a platform hardly puts you in position to punish with a smash attack. Dsmash also is not consistent when it comes to hitting DK from the platform. It only hits him while he is bouncing up in his idle animation or during certain attacks where he reaches upwards like up b or Dsmash.
 

A2ZOMG

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Uh, I'll also point out. Nobody good actually spams moves when edgetrapping. Outside of baiting or forcing a reaction, they use them to react to your getup, since every getup in the game does have noticeable startup.

One of the things about DK I find is that it's very easy to tell the difference between his edgestand and his getup attack, which is why he's really easy to edgetrap.
 

PentaSalia

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i don't like playing DK on BF for the same reason i don't like playing snake on BF
i just feel too closed and i don't have room to set up my approaches. They can easily hide under the platforms if they wanted to. Plus the fact that DKs upsmash kills so early makes it uneasy about hanging on top of those platforms lol.

SV or lylat are your best choices IMO

as for CPs,i love taking DK to frigate because it's so easy to pressure him offstage.
Of course one can come back with the,"he can kill you so early on that stage" but he can kill you early on any stage lol so you might as well play on a stage where you can kill him as early as he can kill you. Though it's just my personal view on this. You could always just go RC:p.
 

Valdens

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I definitely think this is our favor. We have the tools to avoid all of his kill setups and juggle him badly.

iuno

I wonder what else I could say
 

A2ZOMG

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Well that's pretty easy to say for any character against DK if they don't know the matchup. DK however is pretty much mostly shenanigans, and has a really hard time in general when you watch out for a few specific things and realize 90% of his game is basically just F-tilts and B-airs, which are nowhere near safe enough for him to wall you out.

You can punish him on block much more effectively, wall him out more reliably, he gets DESTROYED offstage especially on neutrals, and he is a character that really can't avoid taking damage when he goes above you.

Just stop running into his U-tilt/D-smash out of airdodge, learn how to punish his getup attack and ledgestand on reaction, edgeguard him conservatively, G&W easily has the tools to destroy DK reliably.

I really have to emphasize how easy it is to edgetrap DK. You can cover basically all of his getup options on reaction....and considering that this allows you to potentially land Smashes very easily on him...
 

SorryAboutYourDaughter

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Spam U-smash, and shield-grabs, and it becomes a winning match-up.

- U-smash can out prioritize a fully charged B, and just about every other move.

- Shield-grabs can help you get past his enormous reach.

- If you space turtles at the right angle, and DI properly, he has almost no option other than shield.

- He's got a big frame so moves like nair rack up damage and set up deadly combos.

- You can juggle him off stage if your good enough.

Play smart and you'll do fine!
 
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