Donkey Kong (SSB)

This article is about Donkey Kong's appearance in Super Smash Bros. For other uses, see Donkey Kong.

Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong
Universe	Donkey Kong
Appears in	SSB SSBM SSBB
Availability	Starter
Tier	B (7)

Donkey Kong (ドンキーコング, Donkī Kongu) is a starter character in Super Smash Bros. He is known as a slow (in terms of attacks) yet powerful character, with his trademark move being the Giant Punch, which, when fully charged, deals 36% damage.

Attributes

Donkey Kong is the heaviest and largest character in Super Smash Bros. This means he gets hit quite easily (and having a poor shield cover makes this worse), but he can take many hits before being KOed. Like most heavyweights, DK has attacks that deal lots of damage and have good knockback. He also has two spikes, and his Giant Punch is extremely powerful when fully charged. However, he has slow attacks, and most of his kills still require setup. Contrary to popular belief, Donkey Kong has slightly above average dash speed (although he does have the slowest air speed). Donkey Kong has a great grabbing/throwing game due to having the longest non-tether grabbing horizontal range, terrific throw combos (especially when there are walls), and an infinite throw called the Infinite throw trap. Donkey Kong has good reach (which allows for good combos despite slow attack speed), but he lacks a projectile as well as a reliable way to deal with them (which makes his approach poor and unvaried). Donkey Kong's up special move, Spinning Kong, travels great horizontal distance, but poor vertical distance. It should be noted that Donkey Kong is extremely vulnerable to combos due to being very large, very heavy, and falling somewhat quickly.

In high level play, DK is known for his incredible priority up b and for back throw gimps. DK is known as a heavy counter to Jigglypuff, as you can grab, cargo release, and regrab into a Giant punch for kills. DK however has problems with projectiles and characters like Fox, Kirby, and Falcon combo DK too heavily for him to rise on the tier list. DK is usually considered to be the best low tier in Low Tier Tournaments due to his punch combos and that there are a very low amount of projectile users in low tiers.

In Doubles

DK is considered to be better for doubles than singles as he is better at killing as opponent characters are forced to approach. What helps him also is that partners can save him from large grab combos and that he is one of the few characters with a good recovery. DK also happens to be excellent at gimping, one of the main ways of killing in teams. This is especially true on Dream land.

MovesET

Ground Attacks

• Neutral Attack: Jab, 2-4%, followed by a punch for another 2-4%.

Power attacks

• Forward Tilt: Extended Punch, 5-13%
• Up Tilt: Upward Knock, 5-13%
• Down Tilt: Low Slap, 3-8%
• Dash attack: Konga Kick, 5-12%

Smash attacks

• Forward Smash: Big Slap, 8-21%
• Up Smash: Upward Clap, 8-21%
• Down Smash: Spinning Splits, 8-19%

Aerial attacks

• Neutral Air: Spin, 5-15%
• Forward Air: Spinning Spike, 6-16%
• Back Air: Backwards kick, 4-15%
• Up Air: Upward Knock, 5-12%
• Down Air: Spike, 4-13%

Throws

• Forward throw: Trap Throw, 6-8%

Donkey Kong will hold his opponent on his back, dealing 8%. He can then move around before throwing them forward for another 8%.

• Back throw: Backward throw, 14-18%

Get-up Attacks

• Ledge attack: Jumps onto the stage backwards, ramming into opponents with his back. Long range, low knockback, 5-6%
• 100% ledge attack: Climbs back onto the stage slowly, pausing when half on to slap opponents in front of him. Very short range, low knockback, 5-6%

Taunt

• Turns to his right, raises his arms so that his palms are facing upwards, and shrugs while shaking his head.

Special Moves

DK's special moves

Neutral special	Giant Punch
Up special	Spinning Kong
Down special	Hand Slap

In Single-player

In the game's single-player mode, you and two randomly chosen allies will fight a Giant DK on the Kongo Jungle stage.

Costume Gallery

File:Alt-dk.jpg

Donkey Kong's changeable palette swaps in SSB

Strategies

Infinite Throw Trap

DK has the ability to use forward throw as a method to constantly stack damage to most characters. In order to do this, DK must use the Trap Throw, but not throw. If the opponent wiggles out, they will likely wiggle out into DK's grab range whereupon they can be grabbed again. This throw trap can be broken if the opponent can shake towards DK and his grab. Yoshi and Ness have the most problem getting out of the throw trap due to their different double jump. Pikachu is the easiest to get out with due to being able to get out of it using the invincibility frames of up B.

Another infinite trap is to use Down B in the lower left part of Mushroom Kingdom to continuosly damage the target. However, this can easily be teched out of. Also, this is not allowed in tournaments due to the fact that the stage is banned in tournaments.

Ledge Dropping

Due to DK's laggy aerials, DK has very little comboing potential with his aerials except d-air or f-air into throw. However, if DK drops from a ledge, DK can quickly use a u-air and then land to move to do another attack. DK can also jump, use an aerial, and land on a ledge for a similar effect. As a result, on ledges, DK can juggle characters with u-air that he would otherwise never be able to combo.

Down b resets and down air usage

DK can also cancel the first slap of the down b by moving the control stick directly back after the first slap to allow him to combo it into a back air, a grab, and even a giant punch or up smash to kill the majority of the cast outside of Luigi and Jigglypuff. DK's other main killing combo outside of grab based gimps is down air into up smash or down air into down smash.