King Dedede General Moveset Discussion

[vegaspoker]

I'm really enjoying playing DDD at the moment. Some of my thoughts on the changes:

Pros:
I MASSIVELY love his new D-tilt. I've probably landed more hits with that move than anything else. I don't think people really expect it. This is my favourite change.
His fair is better (faster).
U-air is better; it reliably 'locks' the recipient in until the final hit.
I prefer his D-air from Brawl's. It's nice he has a meteor.

Cons:
Down B is still difficult to land and never seems worth it with the ending lag.
Recovering can be difficult if your opponent is pressuring you in the air. Up-B back to stage is easily punishable.
I preferred his B-air in Brawl. It was quick and great for edgeguarding. The current one is okay but it's slower.

Misc:
The Gordos are amazing against players that don't know you can deflect them, but potentially crippling against those that do. Porjectile spammers won't be caught out much by a Gordo, and Villager's will pocket them with ease. These can be good or bad, but are risky against a good player.

 

[Culix]

When gordos get hit back, how do you grab and send it back to them?

 

[meleebrawler]

When gordos get hit back, how do you grab and send it back to them?

You can't re-grab them, but you can try to hit it back with side b again if
you have time (or maybe any attack would work?)

 

[ShinobiSli]

The gordos have been my biggest hurdle with maining him. When I spam them they always get hit back at me, but when they're unexpected they can do some major hurt. Best luck I've had is throwing one down while falling back to stage, or throwing them vertically at the edge of a stage to help edgeguard. You can get some lucky free spikes on certain stages.

 

[Slaudial]

Are you serious? His Gordos are soooooo much better then his garbage Brawl projectile. Yeah, they can be reflected. And this is pretty unfortunate. They are still like 3x better then the Brawl ones. Really good for edgeguarding and to throw out when your opponent is on the ledge. They can also help you get back to the stage too when recovering.

Also, they aren't random anymore. So that's cool.

Also, to regrab the Gordos all you have to do is side B again when it's near you after it's been hit and Dedede will catch it and throw it back.

 

[Jabejazz]

Are you serious? His Gordos are soooooo much better then his garbage Brawl projectile. Yeah, they can be reflected. And this is pretty unfortunate.

That is sadly what makes them effectively worse.

Our edgeguarding game is already our best asset as King Dedede. We didn't need an extra tool to edgeguard, although it is very welcome.

Our projectile game should've been useful for the neutral/approach game, something TripleD clearly lacks.

 

[Slaudial]

That is sadly what makes them effectively worse.

Our edgeguarding game is already our best asset as King Dedede. We didn't need an extra tool to edgeguard, although it is very welcome.

Our projectile game should've been useful for the neutral/approach game, something TripleD clearly lacks.

I.....what? How often do you hit people in Brawl with his old Side B? It was terrible! Just....no. Gordo is way better then his **** Brawl side B ever was. I don't care that Gordo can be reflected. Okay, no, I do care. But It's still better.

Smash 4 Gordo uses.
-Use it for defense. Scared your opponent might want to rush you down? Need some breathing room? Lob a Gordo!
-Use it to get back to the stage.
-Use it to edgeguard. Lob a Gordo so it bounces down low to catch your opponent recovering.
-Use it to pressure your opponent when they're on the ledge. Gordo lob takes up a lot of space.
-Stick a Gordo in the wall for edgeguarding. Sadly, I don't know how to do this consistently.
-Throw it out once in a while. At mid range your opponent will usually not try to reflect it and if you throw it from all the way across the stage and they reflect, who cares? You'll have enough time to hit it back easily. Just don't be a dumbass and throw it out constantly. So I suppose if the Dedede player is a moron I can see how they would think this is bad. "Durrrrr Gordos can be reflected! That means I can't use them the way Mario/Pikachu can keep mashing the B button the whole match! USELESS MOVE CONFIRMED!!!!!"
-Use it as a punisher. See your opponent wiff something fairly laggy and don't know what to punish with? Predict a roll or something dumb like that? Run up and Side B! When fresh, both the hammer hit and Gordo together does 24 damage. That's a lot of damage.

So what do you use the Brawl Side B for?
-A mediocre standard projectile that you throw out once in a while and pray your opponent is dumb enough to get hit by. Or pray to the RNG gods that you'll get a lucky Gordo and get a completely undeserved KO at like 100 or something. Yeah, it's random by the way. So **** that. Negative points for RNG.

 

[Jabejazz]

Smash 4 Gordo uses.
-Use it for defense. Scared your opponent might want to rush you down? Need some breathing room? Lob a Gordo!

If you need breathing room, there's no way you have time to land this without getting punished.

-Use it to get back to the stage.

Doesn't cover anything, chances are you'll get it reflected.

-Use it to edgeguard. Lob a Gordo so it bounces down low to catch your opponent recovering.
-Use it to pressure your opponent when they're on the ledge. Gordo lob takes up a lot of space.
-Stick a Gordo in the wall for edgeguarding. Sadly, I don't know how to do this consistently.

Basically all the same use; edgeguarding. As I said, it's cool that we get an extra edgeguarding option, but that's not what we needed out of our projectile.

-Throw it out once in a while. At mid range your opponent will usually not try to reflect it and if you throw it from all the way across the stage and they reflect, who cares? You'll have enough time to hit it back easily. Just don't be a ******* and throw it out constantly. So I suppose if the Dedede player is a moron I can see how they would think this is bad. "Durrrrr Gordos can be reflected! That means I can't use them the way Mario/Pikachu can keep mashing the B button the whole match! USELESS MOVE CONFIRMED!!!!!"

I never said it was useless.
And I agree with you here. It can be used sparingly. But it cannot be used efficiently, nor reliably as a keepaway projectile, nor an approach one. As a projectile, it doesn't do anything we need it to do.

-Use it as a punisher. See your opponent wiff something fairly laggy and don't know what to punish with? Predict a roll or something dumb like that? Run up and Side B! When fresh, both the hammer hit and Gordo together does 24 damage. That's a lot of damage.

There are much better options than a Gordo, notably, reliable kill moves.

So what do you use the Brawl Side B for?
-A mediocre standard projectile that you throw out once in a while and pray your opponent is dumb enough to get hit by. Or pray to the RNG gods that you'll get a lucky Gordo and get a completely undeserved KO at like 100 or something. Yeah, it's random by the way. So **** that. Negative points for RNG.

Again here I agree with you that we gained out of the removal of RNG, at least, Waddles were more useful to approach than what we have now.

Gordo isn't a bad move, but it's far from being something we needed in our toolkit. It doesn't fix our problems in the slightest.

 

[KeithTheGeek]

Right now Dedede has a pretty glaring hole in his kit just because the Gordo gets reflected so easily. He lacks a viable approach option, he can't force an approach, he can't even eat projectiles with it.

The move would be significantly better if hitting it simply removed the hitbox and didn't send it back at Dedede at double speed. The Waddles weren't the greatest in Brawl, but they definitely weren't as situational as his current projectile.

 

[HeavyLobster]

I do feel that Bouncing Gordo helps Dedede's problems somewhat, as it's much easier to use in neutral situations without having it knocked back into your face. Based on my experience with them, they'll still get hit right back at you if hit at the peak of their arc or earlier, but if hit later than that it won't go all the way back to you and it'll just wind up bouncing around your opponent and protecting them, in which case it's usually not too hard to wait it out and keep your opponent from throwing you into it or anything like that. It still has risks, especially if you try to approach and capitalize on the reactions the Gordo forces, but it's much easier to mitigate these risks than it is with normal Gordos.

 

[Spirst]

Hey guys, question. Do any of you know what factors lead to D3's gordos being hit back exactly? It seems like there's multiples ones as I've been able to reflect it back after it had traveled majority of FD and was mostly grounded even with an uncharged water shuriken but have had it still hit me when using a medium charged shuriken.

 

[Jabejazz]

It's based on damage done by the attack.
Anything that hits harder than a certain threshold (3% I believe) will knock the gordo back.

Charged shuriken become multi hit, but each hit deals less base damage than an uncharged shuriken, so the hits will not knock it back.

 

[Spirst]

It's based on damage done by the attack.
Anything that hits harder than a certain threshold (3% I believe) will knock the gordo back.

Charged shuriken become multi hit, but each hit deals less base damage than an uncharged shuriken, so the hits will not knock it back.

Ah, so it's based on % dealt. That certainly clears things up, thank you.

 

[dean.]

it seems that ftilt and all his smashes have transcendent priority now.
i'm a little miffed at that; clanking fireballs and thunder jolts with ftilt was one of my preferred methods for dealing with them in brawl if shielding wasn't a good option. can replace this with dtilt but will mis the disjoint.
apart from projectile clanking however this seems like a good change for ftilt.

 

[Jabejazz]

No kidding, jabbing/dtilt feels a lot less intuitive to me as well.

Also I believe smashes were already transcendent back in Brawl.

 

[Lavani]

An interesting thing I've noticed with Gordos: if you sideB an incoming attack with the right timing, instead of flying back into your face the Gordo will go flying off at its reflected speed and power when it comes off your hammer. To clarify:

1. Gordo sponges attack.
2. Hammer hits Gordo before Gordo hits your face.
3. Gordo hits their face.

Unfortunately sideB has a ton of startup and the window this happens in seems rather tiny, so I highly doubt this has any practical use, but it's interesting to know this can happen and hilarious when it does happen.

 

[Darlos9D]

An interesting thing I've noticed with Gordos: if you sideB an incoming attack with the right timing, instead of flying back into your face the Gordo will go flying off at its reflected speed and power when it comes off your hammer. To clarify:

1. Gordo sponges attack.
2. Hammer hits Gordo before Gordo hits your face.
3. Gordo hits their face.

Unfortunately sideB has a ton of startup and the window this happens in seems rather tiny, so I highly doubt this has any practical use, but it's interesting to know this can happen and hilarious when it does happen.

There have been an alarming number of times for me where I'll go for gordo as a ranged attack, and then my opponent unexpectedly winds up in my face. Where they then eat Gordo at point blank. Possibly right after them striking Gordo, kinda like in that clip.

I love Gordo. I love Gordo so much you don't even know. I may list myself as maining DeDeDe but I'm actually maining Gordo. Gordo is love. Gordo is life.

Seriously though, the threat of Gordo getting knocked back at you is pretty much worth all the benefits. It's not simply the fact that we've got a heavy with a solid projectile (and don't forget crazy recovery options, but I digress). It's the fact that Gordo has multiple possible trajectories to choose from. The trajectory you get for holding Up before D3 hits it is such a grossly useful utility move, since it lets you just drop a nearly-stationary Threat Wall anywhere you want. Think they might rush in? Up trajectory Gordo. Want to rush in yourself and make them second-guess trying to go past you? Up trajectory Gordo and then run through it. Wanna make the edge look really unfun to try to recover back to once you get them offstage? Up trajectory Gordo right near the edge. Got them below the edge? Up trajectory Gordo right off the edge and laugh as it drops on their head. Heck, sometimes an up trajectory Gordo can keep you safe from a chase down when you're trying to recover yourself. Especially if they can't quite see what you're doing.

I feel like you should pretty much aim for having a Gordo bouncing around like an obnoxious jerk as much as possible. Even if you're not dropping him for any particular reason, having an extra threat to your opponent somewhere on screen is going to make them at least a little nervous, and divide their attention. Just keep in mind that he can be knocked back at you and you should be generally okay.

I tend to forget I have other specials.

 

[Soul Train]

I love Gordo. I love Gordo so much you don't even know. I may list myself as maining DeDeDe but I'm actually maining Gordo. Gordo is love. Gordo is life.

This so much.

 

[shrooby]

I tend to forget I have other specials.

Well, the only other special that has some useful utility outside of recovering is Inhale, so that's understandable.

 

[Darlos9D]

Well, the only other special that has some useful utility outside of recovering is Inhale, so that's understandable.

To be (even more) serious, I've been thinking about how his forward smash is so freaking slow even if you don't charge it that it actually warrants rocket hammer as a faster alternative. Assuming you want to just toss something out there really quick. Forward smash has crazy coverage though, of course. It's the weird sort of thing where you have to be expecting the opponent to be coming at you, but they can't be getting to you TOO soon.

Oh yeah, another good up trajectory Gordo scenario is whenever you're coming down from above, after a failed upward KO attempt on you. Just fall down in Gordo's general vicinity to mess up the opponents attempts to hit you coming down. Just, again, be careful if they decide to get cheeky and intentionally smack him towards you.

As with anything, mix up your tactics.

PS: Dropping Gordo into the middle of Green Hill Zone is HILARIOUS.

 

[Lavani]

Jet Hammer's really weak without charging though, outside of really specific circumstances like midair jumping to bait a usmash then falling while charging the Jet Hammer to punish, there isn't really a situation where you wouldn't just use dsmash or something instead...even in that scenario I'm not sure if you're actually getting more bang from Jet Hammer than you would from bair.

I guess it'll never be stale, at least.

 

[shrooby]

I think Jet Hammer could have some utility in the custom variants.
Armored Jet Hammer could prove useful in some instances, but once your opponent figures it out...well...

Using the customs would be more for the surprise factor if anything, I'd imagine. Though maybe the super armor from Armored Jet Hammer could have some uses...

The default is still pretty bleh though.

 

[Darlos9D]

Yeah, after playing some tonight I can see why you'd just do down smash...

Oh well. Put that one down for "use sparingly" I guess.

Edit: A problem I feel I have is that I have a hard time actually hitting people with attacks that will KO them, even when their damage is high. So it just seems like fights go on longer than they should. I still tend to survive due to being heavy and having some great recovery options, but so does my opponent. Meanwhile I pick up other heavies and they KO people with nonchalant slaps.

What's everyone's go-to KO attempt moves? Maybe there's some stuff I should be using more.

 

[KeithTheGeek]

Bair and Fair are good off stage, and Uair has a nice little pop on the end of it that can kill people off the top if you caught them in a juggle. If you can go for it, his Dair is a nice meteor smash. These four (and sometimes an off-stage Gordo) are generally the moves I kill with the most, they're faster than his other potential kill options. I guess the issue is they also stale out pretty quickly because Fair/Bair combo out of dthrow.

 

[Darlos9D]

Bair and Fair are good off stage, and Uair has a nice little pop on the end of it that can kill people off the top if you caught them in a juggle. If you can go for it, his Dair is a nice meteor smash. These four (and sometimes an off-stage Gordo) are generally the moves I kill with the most, they're faster than his other potential kill options. I guess the issue is they also stale out pretty quickly because Fair/Bair combo out of dthrow.

Well I was asking more about go-to ground moves. Though if down throw combos then I guess that gives me on answer.

 

[Lavani]

Bair is definitely my most common KO move both on and off the stage. Falling bair is pretty safe on shield spaced properly, and sh bair autocancels.

If you're strictly talking grounded moves though, dsmash (comes out quick, good at punishing rolls) and usmash (mainly as an OoS punish vs laggy attacks, beware end lag and the sourspot though) would probably be the go-to moves.

For reference, vs Mario at center of FD:
sweetspot usmash - 117%
sweetspot dair (grounded opponent) - 127%
bair - 130%
dsmash - 130%
uair - ~140%
sweetspot utilt - 150%
strong hit nair - 150%
jab combo - 160%
gordo - ~165% (14% hit)
fair - 172%

...and in spite of what I just said about it a few posts ago, a slightly charged Jet Hammer (~16%) KOs around 100%. I might need to start messing around with this move more.

 

[Darlos9D]

Woah, fair is... underwhelming isn't it? I probably went for that way too much now that I think of it. That might have been part of my problem.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Bair is definitely my most common KO move both on and off the stage. Falling bair is pretty safe on shield spaced properly, and sh bair autocancels.

If you're strictly talking grounded moves though, dsmash (comes out quick, good at punishing rolls) and usmash (mainly as an OoS punish vs laggy attacks, beware end lag and the sourspot though) would probably be the go-to moves.

For reference, vs Mario at center of FD:
sweetspot usmash - 117%
sweetspot dair (grounded opponent) - 127%
bair - 130%
dsmash - 130%
uair - ~140%
sweetspot utilt - 150%
strong hit nair - 150%
jab combo - 160%
gordo - ~165% (14% hit)
fair - 172%

...and in spite of what I just said about it a few posts ago, a slightly charged Jet Hammer (~16%) KOs around 100%. I might need to start messing around with this move more.

That's honestly kind of disappointing for a heavyweight. Unlike other heavies, especially Ganondorf and Bowser, Dedede doesn't really have reliable onstage kill options at decent %s. If he ever gets buffs via balance patch in the future, that's one thing I'd like to see improved.

 

[Lavani]

That's honestly kind of disappointing for a heavyweight. Unlike other heavies, especially Ganondorf and Bowser, Dedede doesn't really have reliable onstage kill options at decent %s. If he ever gets buffs via balance patch in the future, that's one thing I'd like to see improved.

It probably just looks worse than it is because I used middle of FD for the numbers. Doing some quick comparisons we match up pretty evenly to Charizard in KO power.

Also keep in mind that we have some significant qualities other heavyweights lack (superb recovery, solid offstage game, true combos, a powerful-though-unreliable projectile), so it isn't exactly unreasonable that we'd have tradeoffs somewhere.

 

[HeavyLobster]

It probably just looks worse than it is because I used middle of FD for the numbers. Doing some quick comparisons we match up pretty evenly to Charizard in KO power.

Also keep in mind that we have some significant qualities other heavyweights lack (superb recovery, solid offstage game, true combos, a powerful-though-unreliable projectile), so it isn't exactly unreasonable that we'd have tradeoffs somewhere.

I'm not saying it's really horrible, but the only other character I really know kill %s for is Ganondorf, so naturally Dedede is going to seem lackluster compared to a character who can kill Mario from the center of FD with almost all of his moves below 140%, and kill as early as 80% either vertically with Dark Fists or the sweetspot of USmash or from the edge of the stage with Bair. Dedede does have the advantage of being able to build damage without having to stale any of his kill moves, so it isn't quite as bad as the pure numbers suggest.(His kill power is still noticeably weaker) I just find that I either kill quickly by getting a good read or gimp, or I wind up taking forever to kill with Dedede. I'd just like something a bit more reliable to kill with, and just giving Utilt its Brawl kill power back or something like that would be nice.

 

[FEFIZ]

Sorry if my post is in a wrong thread but, which are the best DDD custom moves to use in a competitive scene? Thanks!

 

[Jabejazz]

For Neutral B, Taste Test is arguably your better option, although Inhale is still a decent choice when you want to decide where you want to spit your opponent, and Dedede Storm destroys Luma for the Rosa MU. The latter isn't necessarily mandatory against Rosalina, but it's something to think about.

For Up B, Rising Dedede is really good. Super Dedede Jump is alright, but since you'll usually want to recover low to grab the ledge, the downward slam isn't really all that useful. Rising Dedede gives you an extra OoS option, a decent aerial punish and a potential kill move. The other Up B is a weak variant, both in range and strength of SDJ, I'd avoid it.

Down B remains a very unused move even with customs, although Dash Jet Hammer gives an extra movement option, both in the air and on the ground. Haven't gotten much use out of Armored Dedede out of super hard read that yield sub-par rewards. Both are still arguably better than the regular variant.

Side B, I still feel the regular variant is better. Bouncing Gordo isn't all that effective to establish proper stage control (not that any of the variant does, but regular Side B has other usses), and Topspin Gordo is super gimmick, although super fun to use.

 

[Exdeath]

Gordo is important because, when you have used it in the match, it forces your opponent to acknowledge its existence and take measures to counter it by doing things. DDD is a counter-based character who should not attack without reason (because DDD's attacks are long/slow enough in duration that they cause him to either be punished directly or to lose a powerful position against nearly every reaction speed bracket) and loses to passivity in general.

 

[Exceladon City]

I'm in the process of making a spreadsheet of all attacks and their damage to make the Gordo priority more concrete for everyone. This also help out when learning match-ups. It's gonna be a work in progress, I have work and school stuff too deal with beforehand.

 

[Rakurai]

All of the variants of Jet Hammer are actually significantly weaker in terms of knockback when fully charged, and seem to KO about 20% later on average.

The armored version seems like the best one simply for the fact that it limits your opponent solely to grabbing you if they want to interrupt it, meaning that they can't stuff it by simply using an aerial in an air-to-air situation.

 

[Banjo-Kazooie]

Yo I have a question and I'm asking it here. Anyone knows if there is a way Dedede's down tilt (the sexy roll) can do more than 10% that is not equipment related? Any sweetspots or mechanics I dont know? Because I did the test both in training and versus and it seems it is always 10% but I saw a guy in a tourney who did 14%. Mostly curious...

 

[Lavani]

I'd ask who his opponent was, but even a fresh dtilt against a Shulk using Jump or Buster stance isn't going to do more than 12~13%. I haven't seen anything suggesting there's a stronger hitbox on the attack either, though it isn't an attack I've looked into extensively or anything.

 

[Banjo-Kazooie]

Well it was vs. Captain Falcon. Long story short: This guy claimed he used no equipment on a "no equipment, only custom moves" tournament. The C. Falcon acussed him and showed the clip of his match where he did 14% with Dedede's Dtilt. So far it seems that the Dtilt has set damage of 10% not counting stale moves and other factors not present on the match.
So the Dedede lied about not using equipment and I would be a little dissapointed. That or the C. Falcon is the one lying and he is the one who used equipment that actually makes him take more damage. There should/might be a way to see the person's equipment in replays.

 

[Lavani]

Thoughts:

• If this was a local tournament, Dedede would have had an orange indicator if using attack-boosting equipment, while Falcon would still have a white circle if he had negative defense and no stats above 0. Unfortunately I don't think equipment indicators are visible online if that were the case.
• If the damage was in fact a result of equipment, it should be visible in the damage of a lot more than just one dtilt. Though if so, it'd be hard if not impossible to gauge who was actually using equipment unless the stat-reducing equips Falcon hypothetically would've been using had shown their secondary effects.
  
• Eliminating equipment, it's only logical that something else in the match would've affected the damage, though I wouldn't know what.

It really does sound like one of them had equips on, but I find it interesting that the dtilt is all that raised suspicion if so.

 

[Uberkouza]

Hi, I'm fairly new to using King Dedede, just picked him up a few weeks ago (Came from using Marth and Pit). I'm wondering how useful sticking Gordos on walls is. It seems to take a large amount of time to set up, and the Gordos don't stick around for long anyways. I just want to know whether or not this tactic is viable, I don't mean to complain or anything. Thanks.