Diddy Kong (SSB4)

Diddy Kong (, Diddy Kong) is a playable character in Super Smash Bros. 4. He was confirmed on February 21st, 2014, coinciding with the international release date of . Instead of using his voice actor Katsumi Suzuki, Diddy Kong retains his realistic chimpanzee screeches from Super Smash Bros. Brawl (sampled once again from the commonly used "Chimpanzee Screeche PE026201" stock sound effect).

Diddy Kong ranks 2nd/3rd out of 54 characters in the tier list, tying him with, and placing him in S tier, a slight rise from his equally top-tiered placement of 4th out of 38 in Brawl, and is his best placement in the series. Diddy Kong's strengths lie in his powerful comboing ability, with attacks flowing very well together as a result of their surprisingly long reach for a character of his size, quick frame data, and low knockback. He also has a fair share of strong, effective finishers, such as his smash attacks, which he can combo into. He is also highly mobile and has a strong neutral game, thanks to his, Monkey Flip and Peanut Popgun, all which provide him great mobility and stage control. Diddy Kong also features many safe and reliable ways to KO thanks to his down tilt, forward air, back air, and throws. On top of this, Diddy Kong also has a strong and safe edgeguarding game thanks to back air and Peanut Popgun. Diddy's flaws are his susceptibility to being gimped, owing to how linear and short-ranged Monkey Flip is, as well as the unsafe properties of Rocketbarrel Boost, a poor damage output which is exacerbated by his poor aerial mobility when not using special moves, which hinders his aerial combo game and the lack of a reliable combo breaker. Despite a number of nerfs to his combo ability in updates, Diddy Kong has maintained outstanding tournament results throughout the game's competitive lifespan, particularly thanks to.

Attributes
Diddy Kong, true to his appearance in the games, is an overall agile character. He is a middleweight with fast walking speed, fast dashing speed, fast falling speed, strong jumps, as well as the ability to wall cling and crawl. However, he has low air speed, below average air acceleration and high gravity, hindering his aerial mobility.

Matching his great mobility overall, Diddy Kong's greatest strength is his quick attack speed. Along with having a variety of moves with quick frame data and low knockback, Diddy Kong's limbs have the unique ability of stretching, giving his attacks surprising range. This grants Diddy Kong one of the best combo abilities in the game, which is further supplemented by the utility of his moves. His grounded game has some interesting options: his up tilt covers a very reliable arc above himself, has follow-up potential at low percentages and great KO potential at high ones despite its speed. Down tilt has low knockback, giving it the ability to combo into itself, as well as KO set-ups into up smash and forward aerial. His smash attacks also have high speed and good power, making them great for finishing off opponents. Forward smash is fairly quick and has the highest knockback of Diddy Kong's attacks, along with having the least ending lag out of his smash attacks. Up smash has incredibly fast startup with good range, and is his most commonly used smash attack to finish an opponent's stock due to the plethora of set-up options into it. Down smash is a semi-spike, making it great for edgeguarding and covering rolls, though it should be used carefully due to it having the highest ending lag out of his smash attacks. Meanwhile, his neutral attack has quick speed and is safe on hit, though it lacks reliable KO potential and cannot jab cancel into Diddy's moves, making it overshadowed by his other options. Forward tilt has very good range, can be angled and deals good knockback, making it great for spacing opponents out, but it is commonly forgone in favor of his smash attacks due to it lacking reliable KO potential, like his neutral attack.

In contrast, Diddy Kong's air game is also strong in any case, due to his aforementioned range, speed, and balance of power. Neutral aerial has a long duration and decent vertical knockback, making it a useful combo extender. Forward aerial is fast, strong and has a long duration and can autocancel from a short hop fast fall, making it the all-purpose attack and one of the staples on Diddy's moveset. Back aerial is his second fastest one, and has decent power for its speed, making it useful for comboing and edgeguarding. Up aerial, while significantly nerfed over time, remains Diddy's fastest aerial and, due to its high base knockback, it is excellent at juggling the opponent. His down aerial, however, despite having very high power for a meteor smash, has a sourspot, high landing lag and lasts for only one frame. Thus, while it is a dependable edgeguarding tool, it is arguably Diddy's least useful aerial.

Diddy Kong's already great neutral game is further supplemented by his versatile special moves. Peanut Popgun allows Diddy Kong to shoot a peanut, a weak projectile that can be used for edgeguarding or disrupting approaches. While slow and difficult to land, the explosion from the overcharged popgun can also be used as an attack. It is also tremendously powerful, dealing 23% damage and heavy knockback, KOing earlier than even 's forward smash. Monkey Flip is a command grab that lets Diddy Kong latch onto and pummel an opponent. From there, it can be followed up by either a double punch or a jump attack, with the latter being a meteor smash and granting Diddy Kong a second use. Alternatively, it can be cancelled immediately into a strong flying kick. The jump also grants a lot of momentum, making it a great move for recovery. Rocketbarrel Boost is Diddy Kong's primary means of recovery, covering large amounts of distance, especially if fully charged. Diddy Kong can also ram and launch opponents, and if attacked during it, the rocketbarrels become unblockable projectiles. Finally, is a defining part of Diddy Kong's ground game. It can be used as a regular Banana Peel or out of shield, both of which can be used for predicting the opponent's floor recovery or leaving them open to a smash attack. All of these moves grant Diddy Kong excellent stage control options, and give him a fantastic neutral game when combined with his combo potential and strong mobility.

However, Diddy Kong has some weaknesses. One of his flaws is his damage output being below average overall, making it crucial for him to extend his combos in any way possible to rack up the most amount of damage. In addition, despite his small frame and only average weight, Diddy Kong is vulnerable to combos, due to his fast falling speed and high gravity, and he doesn't have a particularly reliable combo breaker. While his neutral aerial is something of an exception due to its long duration, it is only situational for combo breaking as it has surprisingly slow startup at frame 8. This makes it easy for characters with reliable combo abilities to easily rack up damage on him, while his weight isn't heavy enough to sustain heavy hits at high percents. Another flaw is his recovery. While his high jumps, wall cling and special attacks grant very long distance overall and allow for many mix-ups, this is counterbalanced by the numerous risks in using his recovery moves. Monkey Flip's kick input prevents Diddy Kong from using any other special move and, by extension, his Rocketbarrel Boost, which can limit his ability to use the move for recovery, and as mentioned before, Rocketbarrel Boost has to be charged to cover long distances, and the rocketbarrels will detach from Diddy Kong if he's hit or crashes into the stage. This means that any hit during the move can be detrimental to Diddy Kong, with meteor smashes often KOing him outright (it still takes good timing to gimp his recovery because of the sheer speed of his Rocketbarrel Boost). As a result, Diddy Kong's recovery is only average.

Finally, even though his air game is arguably one of the best in Smash 4, it is still flawed. Diddy Kong's aforementioned slow air speed is slow enough to the point that he can only perform Wall of Pain combos at low percentages. His neutral, up and down aerials are good combo combo starters (the lattermost also being a powerful meteor smash), his forward aerial is good for catching dodges due to its long duration and his back aerial is a good edgeguarding option due to its fast startup (frame 5), but none of his aerials have are powerful enough to KO until very high percentages unless under the rage effect. In addition, his forward and down aerials have a surprising degree of landing lag (26 and 28 frames, respectively), his neutral and down aerials have unfavorable autocancel windows, and his up aerial is his only reliable aerial KO option, though it can only KO reliably if used after a down throw (both of which were nerfed in the 1.0.6 and 1.0.8 updates, as the former had its knockback reduced and the latter had its knockback increased and its angle altered). Finally, all of Diddy Kong's aerial attacks are surprisingly easy to punish on shield as none of them are effective at wearing down shields.

Diddy Kong only has a few useful custom moves, having only two that are overall better than their defaults: Rocketbarrel Attack and Shocking Banana Peel. Rocketbarrel Attack has much less maneuverability and is slower, but is extremely powerful even when uncharged, granting Diddy Kong a lethal surprise KO option. Shocking Banana Peel has a different throw trajectory and is less effective when thrown directly at the opponent, but is able to paralyze the opponent, leaving them wide open to any attack. The rest of his custom moves have disadvantages that noticeably outweigh their advantages, with Exploding Popgun being particularly notorious. However, these do not matter much because his default specials are extremely useful.

Overall, despite his constant nerfs, Diddy Kong remains a very potent character. The combination of high combo versatility, easy to land KO options, strong stage control and the lack of a glaring weakness have granted him great results in tournaments, as demonstrated by numerous top-level competitiors such as.

Changes from Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Initially, Diddy Kong was considered to be buffed in his transition from Brawl to Smash 4 despite already being a top tier character due to his new incredible up aerial which when combined with the changes to hitstun canceling/DI, he could combo into it with itself or his throws for either a deadly 50/50 with up throw or a long lasting kill confirm with down throw, but as of patch 1.0.8, he has been considerably nerfed from his initial incarnation and has seen a mix of buffs and nerfs from the transition from Brawl to Smash 4 but has been nerfed overall.

His most significant nerf was to his move which was previously the key to his past success. Not only can he now only have one Banana Peel out at a time, but the peels also vanish if they hit an opponent, greatly hindering Diddy's stage control and removing his zero-death potential with his bananas. The removal of glide tossing also hurts his banana game. Peanut Popgun is now laggier and it is weaker when charged which further hurts Diddy's stage control. In addition to this, Diddy's damage output is considerably lower, weakening his damage racking abilities and hindering some of his move's KO potential. Forward aerial and the front hit of down smash are two moves which fall victim to this. Some moves have also seen nerfs to their speed most notably dash attack and back throw with the former in particular suffering from its greatly increased ending lag. Diddy Kong also falls noticeably faster which while improving his vertical endurance and making him less susceptible to juggles, it also makes him considerably more vulnerable to combos. Lastly, Diddy's hitboxes are worse for a majority of his moves with his attacks either having smaller hitboxes and/or having specific hitboxes removed.

He did however see some buffs. His already strong combo potential has been increased further due to the changes to hitstun canceling. Diddy Kong's grab game is much stronger as Diddy releases opponents later from up and down throw (giving them less ending lag), down throw's angle has been altered and the removal of hitstun canceling has given both throws very strong combo potential. Diddy's limbs are also longer which gives a decent amount of his attacks more range even if they have worse hitboxes. Up smash is now considerably stronger (along with having more vertical range) now being a viable KO move which Diddy can even combo into with down tilt. His recovery has also significantly improved. Monkey Flip covers more distance and Rocketbarrel Blast is much more versatile.

Overall, he is still one of the most successful characters in competitive play, albeit not nearly as much as in early versions of the game where he was indisputably the best character in the game. While Diddy Kong technically became inferior to his Brawl counterpart, every other character in Brawl's higher tiers was either nerfed significantly more than him, or outright removed from the game. As a result, his competition has been toned down translates towards an even stronger position relative to the cast.

Ground attacks

 * Neutral attack:
 * Dash attack:
 * Forward tilt:
 * Up tilt:
 * Down tilt:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Dash attack:
 * Forward tilt:
 * Up tilt:
 * Down tilt:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Dash attack:
 * Forward tilt:
 * Up tilt:
 * Down tilt:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Dash attack:
 * Forward tilt:
 * Up tilt:
 * Down tilt:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Forward tilt:
 * Up tilt:
 * Down tilt:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Forward tilt:
 * Up tilt:
 * Down tilt:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Up tilt:
 * Down tilt:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down tilt:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down tilt:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down tilt:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:

Aerial attacks

 * Neutral aerial:
 * Forward aerial:
 * Back aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Forward aerial:
 * Back aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Back aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Back aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:

Throws/other attacks

 * Grabs:
 * Pummel:
 * Forward throw:
 * Back throw:
 * Up throw:
 * Down throw:
 * Floor attacks:
 * Front floor attack:
 * Edge attack:
 * Trip attack:
 * Back throw:
 * Up throw:
 * Down throw:
 * Floor attacks:
 * Front floor attack:
 * Edge attack:
 * Trip attack:
 * Up throw:
 * Down throw:
 * Floor attacks:
 * Front floor attack:
 * Edge attack:
 * Trip attack:
 * Down throw:
 * Floor attacks:
 * Front floor attack:
 * Edge attack:
 * Trip attack:
 * Front floor attack:
 * Edge attack:
 * Trip attack:
 * Front floor attack:
 * Edge attack:
 * Trip attack:
 * Front floor attack:
 * Edge attack:
 * Trip attack:
 * Edge attack:
 * Trip attack:
 * Trip attack:
 * Trip attack:
 * Trip attack:
 * Trip attack:
 * Trip attack:
 * Trip attack:
 * Trip attack:
 * Trip attack:

Special moves

 * Peanut Popgun:
 * Monkey Flip:
 * Monkey Flip grab attack:
 * Monkey Flip grab jump:
 * Monkey Flip kick:
 * Rocketbarrel Boost:
 * Rocketbarrel Boost hitboxes:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Monkey Flip:
 * Monkey Flip grab attack:
 * Monkey Flip grab jump:
 * Monkey Flip kick:
 * Rocketbarrel Boost:
 * Rocketbarrel Boost hitboxes:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Monkey Flip grab attack:
 * Monkey Flip grab jump:
 * Monkey Flip kick:
 * Rocketbarrel Boost:
 * Rocketbarrel Boost hitboxes:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Monkey Flip grab jump:
 * Monkey Flip kick:
 * Rocketbarrel Boost:
 * Rocketbarrel Boost hitboxes:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Monkey Flip kick:
 * Rocketbarrel Boost:
 * Rocketbarrel Boost hitboxes:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Rocketbarrel Boost:
 * Rocketbarrel Boost hitboxes:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Rocketbarrel Boost:
 * Rocketbarrel Boost hitboxes:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Rocketbarrel Boost hitboxes:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Rocketbarrel Boost hitboxes:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Rocketbarrel Boost hitboxes:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:
 * Rocketbarrel Barrage:

Update history
Diddy Kong was initially a significantly more potent character in earlier versions of Smash 4, with Diddy Kong being significantly nerfed overall. Update 1.0.4 mostly gave Diddy minor adjustments with the only meaningful change being that Diddy lost his ability to cancel non-tumble hitstun with Peanut Popgun. While this could be a powerful technique when used in the right situations, it was quite situational and restrictive, so the loss of it overall did not significantly hurt Diddy.

However, update 1.0.4 removed the ability to LSI moves which launched between 65°-115° which turned out to be greatly beneficial to Diddy (further helped by the lower vertical blastzones in the Wii U version). Diddy had numerous vertical launching combo starters and KO moves which greatly benefitted from the change, as they could no longer be LSIed (despite being the same moves on paper). Diddy's extremely fast and versatile up aerial became a much more deadly KO move and his throws could combo for a much longer period of time, as his up aerial and vertical throws could no longer be LSIed. Diddy's down throw could reliably combo for a much longer period of timing, becoming a long lasting KO confirm into up aerial without DI (colloquially known as the "Hoo-hah") and a long lasting 50/50 into potential KOes with DI. Diddy's up throw went from a throw which could not lead into KOes or 50/50es (even on a platform) to a throw that could lead into KO confirms with up aerial on the ground at pretty low percents (which then lead into a deadly 50/50 for some time when the opponent escaped the KO confirm window), which Diddy could easily mix up the side he could hit his up air (regardless of the opponent's DI on the up throw) to throw off the opponent's DI on the up aerial, which was incredibly powerful. This also extended to Diddy's other vertical launching moves albeit to a lesser extent. Diddy Kong's up aerial was overall one of the best moves in the game in early Wii U versions being incredibly fast, versatile, powerful and having incredible synergy with the rest of his kit.

As a result, while Diddy was directly nerfed coming to 1.0.4/Wii U, he overall ended up as a more potent character as the changes to LSI greatly benefitted Diddy Kong, giving him far more effective combos and significantly greater KO potential. This resulted in Diddy becoming one of the most successful characters during early Smash 4 Wii U tournaments and likely as a result, Diddy would later receive some significant nerfs.

Update 1.0.6 reduced the KO power of a handful of Diddy's moves with the most notable of which being up aerial. Up aerial was previously incredibly powerful, especially since up aerial was an incredibly fast and versatile move which could be used as a powerful combo ender for KOes. The move received a significant damage and knockback decrease which made it a significantly less devastating KO move. Diddy's up and down throws were also adjusted which had poor synergy with Diddy's weakened up aerial. Up throw was made weaker which did make it a better combo tool at higher percents but when combined with up aerial's reduced power, this notably meant that up throw up aerial did not lead into KOes until significantly higher percents. Down throw received more knockback which made down throw up aerial (which was previously only a true KO confirm without DI) a significantly more restrictive confirm than it previously was. While these changes were impactful overall, making Diddy a less overtuned character, Diddy still remained a highly potent character despite them, with the nerfs failing to significantly bring Diddy down compared to the rest of the cast.

Update 1.0.8 brought along more changes to Diddy, including some impactful nerfs. Diddy Kong's up aerial was made slower in numerous ways which considerably hindered its utility. Its hitbox came out one frame later, significantly reducing the move's downwards range (which had numerous affects), it gained more ending lag and its auto-cancel window became far less lenient, resulting in up aerial becoming harder to land and removing a whole bunch of applications it previously had. In addition to this, its knockback was significantly reduced again, resulting in the move becoming a significantly weaker KO move. Diddy's throws were also negatively adjusted again. Up throw received a damage decrease with no significant knockback change which made Diddy's up throw combos less damaging and when combined with up aerial becoming weaker, this notably removed up throw up aerial as a KO platform on flat ground. Down throw saw a significant increase to its knockback which completely removed any remaining ability it had to lead into up aerial for potential KOes. These changes overall were even more impactful than the nerfs Diddy received in 1.0.6 and they did slightly bring Diddy down compared to the rest of the cast.

After 1.0.8, Diddy saw a couple of minor adjustments and while some of these changes were beneficial, Diddy still remained an overall far cry to how he was in early Wii U versions. Amusingly, in patch 1.1.1, Diddy Kong had a glitch that had rendered him invulnerable to grabs of any kind (although he could not shield in this state) until he performed any kind of dodging maneuver. This was later fixed in patch 1.1.2, nine days after 1.1.1's worldwide release.

Overall, Diddy Kong has been significantly nerfed since his initial release. While Diddy Kong did become more potent coming from 3DS to Wii U, due to him significantly benefitting from the game's universal changes, Diddy has since been significantly nerfed, receiving numerous reductions to his damage/KO power as well as having weakened combo tools and worse frame data. Up aerial in particular had been a rather drastically nerfed move, going from one of the best moves in the game, to simply a good but balanced move, with the move becoming slower and losing a massive chunk of its KO power, which was only further exacerbated by Diddy's altered combo throws. Despite this, Diddy Kong still remained one of the most potent characters in the game. Diddy's powerful neutral and defensive game were near untouched, with Diddy's excellent mobility and projectiles remaining completely in tact. The nerfs mainly weakened Diddy Kong's punish game but Diddy still retained his strong mobility and moveset, allowing him to still easily win neutral and get his punish game going.

While Diddy's tier placement in the vanilla version of the game is hard to determine due to its unoptimized nature, Diddy was a clear top 2 character in early Wii U versions, where Diddy was at his peak in terms of strength. After numerous patches which brought significant nerfs to Diddy as well as adding new top/high tiers through DLC and buffs, Diddy was still considered to be around top 5 by the end of the game's mainstream competitive life and he continued to receive very strong tournament results throughout the game's life, showing that despite his significant nerfs, Diddy still remained one of the most potent characters in the game.

 1.0.4

 1.0.6

 1.0.8

 1.1.0

 1.1.1

 1.1.2

 1.1.4

Moveset
For a gallery of Diddy Kong's hitboxes, see here.
 * Diddy Kong can wall jump, wall cling, and crawl.

Announcer call
''

Tier placement and history
Since the game's release, professionals noticed that Diddy Kong gained heavy buffs despite already being one of the best characters in Brawl, and soon, his players became extremely dominant in early competitive play. Diddy's throws perfectly set up his strong aerial game, with his infamous up/down throw to up aerial combo (known as the "Hoo-Hah") being an unavoidable KO confirm at a wide range of percentages, and his Banana Peel offered strong stage control in spite of its nerfs. Aside from this, his up aerial had the speed and range necessary to KO easily without the need of the "Hoo-Hah", as well as many of his moves being both speedy and hard-hitting and with good range (like forward smash). These traits resulted in him being deemed the best character in the game.

As a result of how disproportionately good Diddy Kong was for how easy he was to play, many professionals such as and  picked him up, resulting in an abnormal number of Diddy dittos at the highest level of play. Even players who did not actively practice the game, such as and, were able to gain strong results using him. Likely as a result of this, Diddy was heavily nerfed by updates 1.0.6 and 1.0.8, and his representation dropped significantly, becoming largely abandoned while was considered the best character instead. Despite this, the top players who continued playing Diddy, such as, , , , and most notably, ZeRo and , continued to push his metagame, adopting a newer, more creative playstyle that emphasizes Diddy's strong neutral game (which was not nerfed).

As a result of these factors, Diddy was ranked 9th on the first 4BR tier list, near the bottom of the A tier, but thanks to continued strong results from multiple top players, along with the nerfs to Sheik, and, some matchups that previously caused him trouble in updates 1.1.5 and 1.1.6, he then took the 1st spot, at the top of the S tier, on the second tier list, despite not being as dominant as he was originally. He has since then seen only a very slight drop to 2nd place in favor of Bayonetta in the third tier list, and then to 2nd/3rd place, tying him with on the fourth and current tier list; although he remains at the S tier and is still considered to be one of the most viable characters in the game, the larger dominance of the former two characters in other regions has caused views on Diddy to slightly dwindle.

Since ZeRo's retirement, however, Diddy Kong has not won any major tournaments at all and his strong results are still considered to be inconsistent in comparison to other characters like Bayonetta, Sheik, Cloud,, , Zero Suit Samus, and , who have managed to obtain overall higher and more consistent results with the character. On top of this, Diddy Kong still has some very troublesome match ups as Fox,, Rosalina, Sheik and even some high and mid tiers such as and  do very well against him. Due to this, Diddy's tier placement is debated on as some say that the character has dropped slightly in the meta with some smashers like, , and even ZeRo himself saying that the character shouldn't be ranked as high as he is.

Most historically significant players
Any number following the Smasher name indicates placement on the PGR 100, which recognizes the official top 100 players in Super Smash Bros. 4 of all time.

See also: Category:Diddy Kong players (SSB4)


 * (#53) - Placed 9th at both and, 13th at , and 17th at both  and  with wins over players such as , , and.
 * (#63) - The best solo-Diddy Kong player in Japan. Placed 5th at, 9th at , 13th at , 17th at , and 25th at with wins over players such as , , and
 * (#62) - Co-mained Diddy Kong alongside and is considered the best Diddy Kong player in SoCal. Placed 9th at both  and, 13th at both  and , and 17th at.
 * (#31) - One of the best Diddy Kong players in the world following ZeRo's retirement. Placed 5th at, , and , 7th at , and 9th at with wins over players such as , , and.
 * (#33) - Co-mained Diddy Kong alongside and is considered the best Diddy Kong player in Japan. Placed 3rd at both  and, 4th at both  and , and 7th at.
 * (#66) - One of the best Diddy Kong players in Japan in the early metagame, but later dropped the character for . Placed 1st at, , and , 3rd at , and 4th at.
 * (#54) - Co-mained Diddy Kong alongside and is one of the best Diddy Kong players in United States. Placed 2nd at, 7th at both  and , 9th at , and 13th at  with wins over players such as , , and.
 * (#1) - The best Diddy Kong player worldwide and of all time. Won 56 tournaments consecutively with Diddy Kong and.
 * (#24) - One of the best Diddy Kong players in the world following ZeRo's retirement. Placed 2nd at, 7th at , 9th at both and , and 13th at  with wins over players such as , , and.

Solo Events

 * All-Star Battle: Brawl: Diddy Kong is one of the opponents fought in this event. All opponents debut in Brawl, and reappear in Smash 4.
 * Guardian of the Jungle:, aided by 2 Diddy Kongs, must defeat 3 s.
 * The Jungle in Chaos: Diddy Kong must defeat 20 s wearing Bunny Hoods.

Co-op Events

 * 1988: and Diddy Kong must defeat 3 Marios, each one larger than the last.
 * The Ultimate Battle: Two players select a character and must defeat the entire roster.

Trivia

 * Diddy Kong's confirmation was the first time a character was revealed for an international release of a game as opposed to just the Japanese release.
 * Diddy Kong's Banana Peels can only be thrown twice before disappearing once landing on the ground, while the actual item when spawned elsewhere can be thrown three times before disappearing.
 * Diddy Kong's neutral aerial attack has an animation glitch in the Nintendo 3DS version: he performs most of a flip, then quickly snaps back upright to begin the cartwheel motion.
 * Prior to update 1.0.6, Diddy Kong's down-throw to up-air combo had quickly gained notoriety as a quick KO string. It gained the name "Hoo-Hah" after interrupted a set between  and.

Diddy Kong (SSB4)