Notes for luffy

Notes for luffy :)
This is a lot of text for just a 3 min match, but its not just like play by play advice, its a lot of general advice and things to do.

Okay so one big thing I saw right off the bat is that you’re throwing the banana to try to make openings with it in neutral. This was okay when diddy had 2 bananas, but honestly its not safe anymore. Its very telegraphed, and any player with any sort of Diddy exp will be watching for it constantly and will know how to both punish you for it or just take the banana away and make your neutral that much harder. Normally you dont want to let the banana out of your hands unless you are doing 1 of a few things:

Z dropping the banana. This is mostly for when you want the banana near you but need access to your other tools you can’t use with a banana in hand. It also has uses for things like punishing spot dodges, some shield pressure/tick throw set ups, and edge guarding.

Glide tossing/regular item throw when you are punishing a whiffed attack/grab/hit on your shield, or confirmed off of a popgun/dtilt hit. Its also very good to throw the banana during tech chases because it starts another one on hit, and on miss it still covers tech options.

using it to control/threaten air space. This means like, throwing it straight up to have presence that vertical slice of the stage for a while, AGT up throw banana down to put a hitbox down safely to try to escape from juggles, or throwing the banana at them off stage to try to force jumps/hit them by controlling off stage air space/recovery paths.

Sorta long winded but yeah, don’t just throw bananas in neutral. Also if you do feel the need to, don’t dash throw it. make sure you always JC item throw, so just hit jump then throw it. the item goes out of your hand faster, as well as the animation having about 20 less frames of end lag so if it does it you can convert faster, and you’re less likely to get punished for it. Same with grabs, always try to do JC grabs instead of dash grabs


you got hit off stage but up-b’d well to get around turnips and your ledge waveland was really crispy, nice. Since you already have good ledge wavelands, try to start doing ledge waveland> sh instant bair/Nair, because those are fantastic at putting a quick hitbox out and can turn the positions around really quickly. If thats still rough don’t worry about it, you can learn that with time and then apply it to your game later.

You got a side-b on peach and had the right idea to upair/upsmash juggle her after the side-b slap attack thing. However you have to make sure you know when to dash forward and go for the jump upair instead of just jumping in place because peach DI’d away and your juggle attempts just whiffed.

don’t stand in place so much. Even if you want to keep that positioning, its better to dash dance around the same aera and stay mobile, its harder to hit you and you have more control over the situation.
against floaties like peach, upthrow isn’t the best throw to go for because you stop getting anything after it. Go for dthrow and just position yourself accordingly depending on the DI

yeah the last stock was an example of you losing control over the banana and it costing your stock, peach got it, and used it against you to land a tech chase side-b on you.


Focus more on the opponent, so you know whats going to be happening, its pivotial for diddy because his whole game is reactionary; he has to force his opponent to make the first move and then chose the corect option to stuff it or punish it, and convert off that. If you can’t understand what the opponent is doing you can’t win with Diddy in this build. Thats why he’s so MU knowledge dependent, much more than other characters.

I think you really need to focus on making every action you do have a purpose. Next time you play or watch a set, think in your head a couple of things. 1: What am I doing right now, and why am I doing it?” If you can’t say why you’re doing what action you’re going for, think about what you are going for and try to find a better choice. 2: “What is my opponent doing right now, and why do I think they are doing it?” You need to be aware of your opponents actions and choices just as much as your own, which can be very hard but Diddy is a character that thrives off learning the opponent and the character. Focus on what they are doing, and try to figure out why they are doing it. Normally they are just doing 1 of 3 things, trying to hit you, trying to control space, or trying to not get hit. Figure out what they are doing and why, so you can come up with answers.

Diddy is a hard character because he thrives in neutral and the mental game. As you get better as a player your diddy will get better and better. I suggest this thread to improve quickly, generally you need to be cognizant of what you are doing, why you are doing it, and if there are better options to do, at every moment of you playing.
http://smashboards.com/threads/drastic-improvement.311129/

Read this and try to understand what Umbreon is trying to teach.