Foreword

Table of Contents

i. Staggered-hit Game​

i. Combo DI​

ii. Survival DI​

i. Grab Game​

ii. Keeping it Going​

iii. Finishers​

i. Concepts​

ii. Edgeguarding Options​

iii. Recovery Threads​

i. Crouch Canceling​

ii. Out of Shield/Under Pressure​

iii. Recovery​

i. Further Reading Material​

ii. Thanks​

iii. Conclusion​

I. Neutral/first-hit Game

Neutral-Aerial

Reverse Aerial Rush -> Back-Aerial

Dash Attack

Grab

Giant Punch

Powershield Reflect

Jab

Down-tilt and Forward-tilt

i. Staggered-hit Game

Standard

Knockdown

Aerial Chase

Ledge Pressure

II. Directional Influence

i. Combo DI

ii. Survival DI

III. Combo Game

i. Grab Game

Back-Throw

Down-Throw

Forward-Throw/Cargo Hold

Cargo-Upthrow

Cargo-Forward/Backthrows

ii. Keeping it Going

Regrab

Up-Tilt

Up-Aerial

Neutral-Aerial

Down-Aerial

iii. Finishers

Forward-Aerial

Giant Punch

Neutral-Aerial

Back-Aerial

Up-Smash

A note on vertical KOs

IV. Edgeguarding

i. Concepts

Ledge Invincibility

Reactive Edgeguarding & Edgeguarding Loops

Option Coverage

ii. Edgeguarding Options

Forward-Tilt

Down-Tilt

Back-Aerial

Spinning Kong

Grab

Dash Attack

iii. Recovery Threads

Recovering High

Recovering Low

Recovering Around Ledge Height

Tethers

VI. Defense

i. Crouch Canceling

ii. Out of Shield/Under Pressure

Wavedash Out of Shield

Roll

Up-B

Grab

iii. Recovery

Offstage

From the Ledge

VII. Closing Remarks

i. Further Reading Material

ii. Thanks

iii. Conclusion

Hi, I am Strong Bad. For better or for worse, I've become known to be the best and one of the only relevant Donkey Kong players in Project M. The DK forums have been dead (as they have historically been throughout the Smash series) and I felt that perhaps it'd be useful to the community if I wrote up a generalized guide on how to play Donkey Kong on a macro level.Writing this guide might motivate me to further elaborate on unique match-ups that I've learned due to my travels, but I'll make no promises.This guide assumes you have an average level of understanding of both DK's moveset and Smash in general. I have no intention of taking my time to teach you L-Canceling, wavedashing, or dash-dancing, nor do I intend to go through each one of DK's moves and give you stats about them that won't really help you and that you won't memorize. This thread does not go over every situation, every option, or everything you need to look out for. Instead, I will give you a general rundown of Donkey Kong and how he functions regarding the subjects I have deemed most relevant to a guide of this purpose. I will arm you with the tools necessary to both function with as well as develop Donkey Kong.Many of these are advanced/high-level concepts not obvious to most players, or usually aren't broken down in this manner. I hope to help you improve most efficiently by doing this. Most of these concepts are applicable to other characters, and some are even applicable to vastly different games. Keep in mind that when you're trying to apply new concepts, you will often find yourself performing worse. This is temporary; when you've fully incorporated one of my game philosophies, you will be a much stronger player. Note: If I'm using a term that I plan to abbreviate, I'll first use its full-name and then in parenthesis display its abbreviation so you know for next time and throughout the rest of the guide. Before I begin, I'll go ahead and give you a general idea of Donkey Kong's competitive character.Approaching is tough with him against the better characters, largely due to a lack of a quick forward-facing aerial. His weight/falling speed make him very susceptible to combos, and his size makes him particularly weak to projectile harass/camping. While his horizontal recovery is superb and his weight combined with good survival DI lets him live for a long time in most cases, his vertical recovery is quite lacking and a semi-spike can mean certain doom at low percents. DK also responds to pressure (be it shield or zoning in nature) comparatively poorly.His combo tree is very diverse, which requires continued interaction with your opponent to earn each hit, and an intimate and deep understanding of DK's options in multiple situations. He hits very hard, and you will find yourself rewarded substantially for winning neutral-game situations. Provided you're proficient at landing grabs and other similar setups, with time you will be able to land near-guaranteed KO options at 100-110% on a variety of characters.In conclusion, DK is a fair character, however he is also very competent. He has strengths, and he has weaknesses. Donkey Kong, and this game in general, is very difficult to become good at. You may at times find yourself frustrated, but persevere and with a good amount of patience and skill you should find yourself performing well in tournaments. If you aren't, it's probably not DK's fault, sorry. And with that, let's begin!I. Neutral/first-hit GameII. Directional InfluenceIII. Combo GameIV. EdgeguardingV. DefenseVI. Closing RemarksDonkey Kong is much like the rest of the cast in that his neutral game is based quite a bit on movement. Positioning is key in this game; the success of your approach is rarely based around what move you're using and more on how and when you are using it. DK has a very fast running speed, so your bread and butter mobility and positioning will be similar to other characters. Since he lacks a projectile to compliment his movement, a combination of dash-dancing and wavedashing should be sufficient to position yourself. Always dash-dance with a purpose. If you find yourself asking "but Strong Bad, what purpose does/should DDing serve...?" you have a lot of thinking to do. It wouldn't really help you much if I just told you the answer; the answer will come as you improve as a player. If you're having trouble with this point, try watching a top or high level player that plays a DD-heavy character. Pay attention not to the combos they perform or the moves they choose, but the way they move and how it facilitates their approaches and punishes. This point is crucial to any player trying to play Project M, regardless of which character they choose.Your general gameplan against the vast majority of the cast is to land a grab. The rest of your Neutral-game is based around how to safely deal damage or combo into a grab to prevent your approach from being too linear. Why grab, you ask? You'll learn that in the Grab Game section later on in the guide. As far as the actually approaching goes, there are a variety of approaches you can use and that you will learn to mix up to keep your opponent guessing. It's important to note that against most characters, your approach should have the primary goal of interacting with your opponent's movement, more specifically their dash dance in most cases. As you think about how you approach, contemplate your opponents option of dashing away and punishing you on whiff, often with a fairly nasty combo or KO option. This will make you more cautious about when to pick your fights, and more importantly when you do decide to commit, will make your decisions more sound, covering multiple movement patterns while at the same time making them more difficult to punish if they happen to whiff.This is a list of the moves or methods by which I usually approach. You should include all of these in your approach repertoire; it will then be your job to observe, experiment, and adapt to decide when and how to use each option.DK's Neutral-Aerial (from this point forward referred to as his) is a very, very good move, which you'll be seeing in the Combo section as well. While it's not lightning-fast, it is relatively fast (hits frame 8) and its hitboxes cover a lot of space. On hit, its sweetspot deals 15% damage, has strong Knockback (from this point forward abbreviated), and can combo into grab at lower percents. The most interesting thing to note about it, and what makes it truly spectacular for use as an approach, is the fact that DK's outer forearms have intangibility for the hitting part of the move. This grants the move effective disjointedness, making it difficult for your opponent to directly challenge. At higher percents, landing a Nair will set up an edgeguard or outright KO your opponent. Beware, however; while it has great range and disjoint, even when SHFFL'd is subject to Dash-Dance punishes if predicted.As usual, DK's Back-Aerial () is a great attack with good range, combos into grab at lower percents, and sets up for edgeguards at later percents. In Project M, Reverse Aerial Rush () is preserved, allowing you to run forward, initiate a Run-Turn, jump, and end up airborne facing the opposite direction you started. This makes DK's Bair a viable approach option, but due to the startup commitment, can be reactable depending on what your opponent is doing. Don't use this too much or you'll find yourself shieldgrabbed. This is most useful when you feel your opponent is reserved to DD for spacing and try to whiff punish rather than being focused enough to react and shield an incoming approach.Donkey Kong's Dash Attack is from his Donkey Kong Country appearances, and it works well as an approach here and there. Like in DKC, DK is able to go off ledges/platforms with it as well as Fastfall/Jump-Cancel it if you're airborne, giving him increased mobility on platforms. It's best used to overshoot a dash dance after you've limited their dash-back range to a shorter distance. The later hits on Dash Attack set up right into a grab, and the other hits are also often followable depending on DI. Off-stage, the later hits combo perfectly into Nair or Up-B. If used with equal footing, this move is easily dash-dance punished, and otherwise is fairly simple to shield and punish out of shield, so use with caution.Grab is a pretty good move with this guy. Be it a Jump-Canceled standing grab or DK's excellent Dash Grab, there's nothing more efficient an approach than just grabbing your opponent. Against almost every character, landing a grab will net you a substantial reward that I'll go over later. As I stated earlier, if you grab too often your approach will become linear and easily destroyed. Try not to focus too much on the reward you'll get from each approach, and more on the risk-reward ratio that comes with them. However, most situations where you are "approaching" with grab, you should actually be punishing something that your opponent committed to, as grab is a fairly weak approach option in and of itself.An often overlooked option, charging up your Giant Punch is actually a very good option for a variety of reasons. Having a fully charged punch makes your combo game more deadly, so it stands to reason that charging it when you get the chance is good. Because of this, people don't want you to have a fully charged punch; when they see you charging a punch, they will want to approach and stop you. Charging applies psychological pressure, and usually forces your opponent to approach (or at least forfeit a positional advantage) when they otherwise would have been content to play a very noncommtital and difficult to interact with game. And if not, you've charged it up. Lastly, a fully charged (or even partially charged) punch is deceptively quick for its power, as it gets its full range by frame 19. You can catch your opponent off-guard by using it in place of other more telegraphed approaches like RAR Bair. On top of the whopping 27% damage a fully charged punch deals, there's quite a bit of psychological damage dealt to a player who was just hit by a relatively slow attack at random.While not an actual attack, being able to reflect projectiles back at the opponent is crucial. One of DK's biggest problems has a character is his weakness to projectile harass, and powershield reflect is the best counter DK has to it. Against characters like Ivysaur, Link, Wolf, Zero Suit Samus, and yes, even that big ol' jerk Falco, being able to powershield projectiles a majority of the time lets you actually fight those characters, which is what you should be trying to do against every character. Upon a successful PS Reflect, your next action depends on your opponents position, but most of the time you either want to grab if they're close enough or wavedash out of shield to reset your positioning to neutral (or, a staggered situation if their projectile is strong enough).An uncommonly thought of approach option, DK's jab is sometimes useful for approaching not because of the range it covers but because of its relatively non-committal nature and excellent followups on-hit. If the first jab doesn't hit, you can just dash away or shield against an incoming punish attempt. If the first hit does hit, you can let loose the second hit which has a very Sheik F-tilt-ish trajectory and as such sets up for a variety of followups. Jab -> Grab also works in a lot of cases. To jab effectively during a neutral interaction, there are two good methods. Primarily, you can Dash-Cancel in a similar fashion as performing a RAR, just instead of pressing back you press down, and then let go and press A for a jab, or at least that's how I perform it. Alternatively, you can wavedash and then jab.Donkey Kong's tilts are all great. Forward-tilt () and Down-tilt () are quick, relatively far-reaching spacing tools that are quite useful in intercepting movement. The important things to note are that these moves have little endlag; they are difficult to punish even on whiff and they threaten a significant range. While they generally don't directly combo into something, they will leave the opponent staggered and make them second guess their movement patterns when you land one. I should mention, though, that at very low percents you can do D-tilt -> Grab with relative success, which is not only amusing but awesome if you can do it. You would perform these similarly as with a Jab, by dash-canceling or wavedashing beforehand.As you delve deeper into competitive Project M you will learn that not every neutral-game exchange leads into a true combo, even at lower percents. Often, you will find that instead of landing yourself a grab -> stuff or similar, you've hit your opponent and now you can't get anything guaranteed, but there's something unique about your opponents situation. They have just been hit and they either legitimately do not have all of their options available to them (a tech-chase situation or you've knocked them into the air), or psychologically they don't want to do much (or sometimes, what they want to do is kind of stupid and easily punishable) because of the hit they've just suffered. I refer to this situation as being. This is important to mention because, due to the comparative lack of options at your opponents disposal, getting another hit takes significantly less work to earn, so getting good at recognizing and taking advantage of these situations is crucial with any character and especially DK. Doing so will let you land moves that are otherwise ~unusable in the neutral game that have great reward, Hand Slap (Down-B), Giant Punch (Neutral-B), Down-Aerial () and Forward-Aerial () for example. Note that sometimes you want to forego a guaranteed option to get a more rewarding, not-guaranteed one. As you gain more experience you will recognize when to make those decisions and when not to.I don't really plan to go over a ton of different staggered situations and explain what to do in a flow-chart fashion, but I've gone over their concept and I'll describe a few very common categories of situations and how to approach them. If you pay attention, you'll probably be able to break down other situations you run into, which will be far more useful to you than if I do it for you. Try to apply these concepts and think about how they relate to other situations."Standard" describes a stagger situation where you've hit them, be it with an F-tilt or a Bair or anything else, they haven't been knocked down, and you can't follow up with a true-combo. These usually occur at lower percents or at medium percents against a Crouch-Canceling (ing) opponent. At this point, your opponent has all of his usual options available to him, so the only advantage you have is a psychological one. Your opponent is reeling, and his first instinct is often to do an immediate counter attack, shield, or do a shield option such as Roll or Spotdodge. It's then your job to interact with this awkwardness and secure a proper hit or setup. There is no option you can choose that will work every time. The closest thing to that would be a dash dance. If you haven't realized this by now, DD is your (and almost every character's) best noncommital movement option available. By DDing you're able to weave in and out of your opponents counter attack range and react to any kind of stupid response and punish. Other options include immediate grab (beats just shielding), shield (beats shieldgrabbable counterattacks), jab (beats CC attempts), further tilt harass, and more.This is perhaps the most important stagger in the game. It occurs when you've hit someone hard enough such that they go into tumble hitstun and then land on the ground. Knockdown stagger is fantastic because you no longer have to fight your opponents character, really. Your opponent has the exact same options when they tech regardless of their character: tech away, tech in, tech in place, and no tech (which then branches into getup, getup attack, and rolls). Certainly, tech-roll distances and reactability vary by character, but the concept should be obvious. DK shines in this situation because he gets some of his strongest setups the easiest here: Dair, Grab, and Hand Slap (Down-B). Hand Slap is by far your best tech-chasing option against the majority of the cast; it covers multiple teching options and at times even all of them. It also meteor bounces. This causes the knockback to be multiplied by 0.8 while the hitstun is the same, letting you combo much more freely. However, in most match-ups, while Down-B is much easier to land, landing a grab is much more rewarding. You should try to avoid using Down-B at all times and instead focus on getting better at tech-chasing with grab. DK is very fast, so he is able to do this in most situations even against the most difficult to read players. Dair is good to land at later percents too; it combos into Up-Smash against a large variety of characters which KOs very early. And at lower percents, it can set up for a grab or Uair string. It's most useful on platforms, when you're otherwise unable to quickly grab your opponent or do other such setups.This refers to the situation where your opponent is above you in the air and you are underneath them. This is usually after an exchange where you've done something like Cargo Up-Throw -> Up-Aerial (), were unable to followup with a true combo afterward, and yet you still have a distinct positional advantage. Your opponent can also put himself in this situation, usually in an attempt to avoid an even more disadvantageous situation. At this point you will usually want to initiate something I call "Sharking," which in this context doesn't refer to Brawl MK Up-airing over and over underneath Halberd/Delfino and rather refers to using your mobility to chase your opponent on the X-Axis rather than the Y-Axis as most players are inclined to do when their opponent is above htem. Watch this entire set . Especially on Dreamland, notice how Dr. Peepee opts to simply Up-throw Armada at higher percentages, rather than do the ever-popular Forward-Throw -> nothing combo that Marth players have become known for recently. He chases Armada with his character's mobility and covers muliple drifting branches with Uairs. While DK isn't quite as good at this as Marth is, his Uair is still good and if you're able to get your opponent to commit, you can land ever-precious grabs in situations where you otherwise would have reset the position to neutral.A very common situation, most easily related to corner pressure in traditional fighting games. This comes up naturally in play for a variety of reasons; perhaps you've failed to convert on an edgeguard, you've pressured them to retreat via aggressive movement, or you've hit them and that's where they ended up from the KB and trajectory of your attack. It's important to realize that, just like the other situations, this is not a true neutral situation. While your opponent has all of their options available to them, they do not have the space required to make use of all of them. They cannot dash back and forth because they would run off the stage, they can't even do a shorthop retreating aerial. Further, the psychological pressure of being near the edge can be very powerful in the right hands, and can make your opponents DI and movement very predictable. If they're on the ledge, they are pressured to get back on stage and many players become impatient and you can box them out pretty easily. We'll go more in-depth in the Edgeguarding section, but the general idea is totheir attempt to regain center stage.That's about it for the common ones. These concepts are derived from an understanding of character and player interaction, with a hint of psychology. If you learn to apply them and realize why they work, you should easily be able to break down other situations and apply this knowledge to gain advantages and further sophisticate your decision tree.I originally planned to put the Combo Game section before this, but I decided that in order to fully understand how to combo with DK, you must first understand the ideology behind Directional Influence. Smash is much unlike traditional fighters in that its combo system is filled with interaction. Comparing to Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition, rather than the only thing standing between you and landing cr.lp -> cr.lk -> cr.lk xx Spiral Arrow with Cammy every time being your own execution, your opponent gets to input something that forces you to change each stage of the combo's direction, creating a combo tree rather than simply a combo, although it's a bit more complicated than that description. That option of input is). DI is one of the only core mechanics I will actually explain to you, partially because of how mind-blowingly important it is and partially because the general public tends to be misinformed about it. I will tell you right now that if Smash didn't have DI, I would not play it competitively. Thankfully, it does, so I do. Anyway, DI is where I will be getting the most specific with technical jargon and the like throughout the entire guide, so bear with me and if you make it past this part you're good to go.There are two types of DI, the first and most effective being. Basically what happens when you get hit is that both characters are frozen for a couple frames depending on how strong the move is (ever been down-aired by Ganon? yeah), and then you get sent flying. On the frame you get sent flying, your analog stick's directionthe trajectory you get sent. The general idea is that you want to DI in a perpendicular direction to the original move's trajectory. If you're getting Up-Thrown by a someone whose Up-Throw has a trajectory of 90 (straight up), your most effective DI for changing that trajectory is fully right or left. If you do, the original trajectory changes in that direction by up to 18 degrees, so it'd be 72 or 108. Trajectory DI is useful in both escaping/minimizing combos and in making your character survive longer when sent flying from a move that would otherwise KO you.The second type of DI (which isn't really DI, but our community has named it such) is. You know those frames I explained earlier that occur when you get hit and both characters are frozen for a bit? During those frames, if you move the control stick in a direction, your character literally moves a bit in that direction. Naturally, you go a further distance if youthe control stick, hence the name. This is particularly useful in escaping multihit moves or combo sequences that require (relatively) small hitboxes to hit you such as Falco's shine combos. It also facilitates Ledgeteching, but otherwise its use for survival is fairly limited.So, the unthinkable has happened. You have lost a neutral game exchange and gotten hit. Your opponent is now comboing your poor gorilla, dealing more and more damage with each hit. Unfortunately, this is something that is going to keep happening to you regardless of which character you choose or how good you get at the game. Thankfully, as I explained earlier, Smash has a mechanic that allows you to interact with your opponent even when you are getting combo'd, and vice versa. It's your job in this situation to use DI to either minimize how long/how much damage the combo deals, avoid the most devastating finishing options, or in a few cases completely neutralize the combo and escape.Against many characters, during a combo, your main goal is to land, so your opponent can no longer continue a true combo, rather must deal with a standard or knockdown stagger situation. In most cases this means you are actively DIing away from your opponent, since most characters combo horizontally. Against a few characters, your goal is to DI so far upward such that they cannot follow up due to their lack of vertical mobility, and have to go for an air chase instead. Noticing a trend here? It's actually very difficult to go from a combo'd situation to a neutral situation, because even if you escape the combo, you're still staggered. This makes Project M's overall punishment game very dynamic and deep. Keep your wits about you while you are staggered; your opponent is looking for further hits just like you would be. Try not to panic, as panic responses are often the easiest to punish.The most difficult part of learning proper Combo DI is in fact learning the trajectories of the various moves in this game that are relevant for comboing. For many moves, a well-seasoned player with an intuitive feel for DI, trajectories and knockback will be able to determine how to DI even if he has little experience against his opponents character. Some moves, however, are specifically designed to trick your DI, or characters have multiple moves that work in conjunction to do so. Others are simply weird, and you'll have to learn them individually. The last thing I'll mention is that most moves that seem to have a completely forward trajectory actually have a 45 degree trajectory. Your character's falling speed is active even during knockback which makes it seem lower. This will make your optimal DI down & away or up & inward rather than straight down or straight upward.So you've done what you can and minimized your opponent's combos, but you've gotten first-hit a few too many times. You find yourself at a pretty high percentage, or maybe your opponent has a particularly nonsensical move like Rest or a Stitchface some other nonsense that forces you to consider survival DI at percents that no one should, or you're being edgeguarded. Or maybe you just know that your opponent has to finish their combo and you don't want to end up offstage afterward. Survival DI is very important, because it lets you live longer and even in situations where you wouldn't have died, it makes recovering easier and more difficult for your opponent to edgeguard.Thankfully, survival DI is pretty simple. If you're at a KO percent, your goal is to influence your trajectory such that your character flies as close to in the direction of an upper corner as possible. If your opponent uses a move that KOs vertically, DI to the side. If a move KOs you horizontally, DI up & in. In select cases (Charizard's Up-throw, Mario's strong Fair hitbox, Link's Dair, others likely exist too) the move's original trajectory already sends you into the corner, and it's best to not DI at all.Now, I've explained in pretty decent detail what the Neutral game is and how DK functions within it, as well as a middle-ground between neutral and combo game, the staggered game. You should be proficient at landing first hits (or are well on your way to being such), interacting with various opposing neutral games, and applying pressure in advantageous but non-combo situations. You've also learned how to use Directional Influence in order to minimize or completely escape combos, so you know how your opponent will be trying to DI if they're of relevant skill. Now it's time to touch on DK's true punishing game, which is what makes him a truly formidable character. Donkey Kong's combo game is complex and diverse, requiring a large amount of experience and experimentation to fully understand and implement. Contrary to popular belief, most of his "combos" actually rely on abusing staggered situations to keep his opponent in his control.If you haven't noticed by now, Donkey Kong's grab game is extremely important. It's so important that it deserves its own section.In almost all cases there is no reason to use DK's regular Up-Throw; in any situation where you would want to, a Cargo-Upthrow is better. Cargo-Downthrow is also fairly useless in Singles. Because of this, I'll skip them. Every other of DK's throws are useful, though, so I'll go through each and explain its uses.Back-Throw () is a quick, strong throw with the purpose of either KOing your opponent or setting up for an edge-guard. Most of the time you'll want to use his setup throws instead, but its useful sometimes, usually when you've grabbed your opponent with your back to the ledge.Down-Throw () bounces your opponent on the ground, after which they are sent upwards and forward. The main use of this throw is to set up a Knockdown stagger situation, where you'll be able to tech-chase another grab or Hand Slap to keep things going. Against floatier characters, you can also combo into Nair after D-Throw if they don't DI away. Against very floaty characters like Jigglypuff, you can even chaingrab (with Dash Grab) and combo pretty hard out of it.This throw will be the focus of your grab game. That's because it's not actually a throw; when you do an F-Throw, DK puts his opponent on his back and is able to move around as well as jump to reposition himself. He then has access to 4 additional, unique throws. This will be the foundation of your grab game. Or throw game, whichever you'd like to call it. Another interesting thing to note is that the Cargo Hold has its own mashing timer. If you grab someone and pummel them a bit, even if they mash like crazy it'll be reset when you do a Cargo.This is DK's best setup, bar none. It scales slowly in knockback with %, and has little endlag, letting you combo out of it very well. It sets up very well for Uair strings, U-Tilt, and even chaingrabs Fast-Fallers provided there are no platforms around. Even against the floatiest of characters you're sure to get at least an Up-air in after this throw. Lastly, Cargo-Uthrow sets up great for DK's finishers on a lot of characters. Against most Semi-FFers, Fullhop Cargo-UThrow -> Fair works regardless of DI, and the same goes for Giant Punch.I combined these throws because they are literally the same thing, just in opposite directions, and they are also used in conjunction with each other. DK's Cargo-F/Bthrows have trajectories such that together they form a DI trap. Simply DIing down does not prevent followups from either, so your opponent has to DI away to avoid a followup. But, DIing away for one throw means DIing in for the other. This lets DK combo into a finisher against a wider variety of characters, even against extremely floaty ones, provided he reads his opponents DI. This is also great to use at the ledge, as players tend to DI in out of fear, granting you a finisher with your opponent already offstage to begin with. Lastly, against semi-FFers, if you read your opponents DI these throws actually have the ability to chaingrab, a good option to keep them guessing and tack on a bit more damage before going into Uair strings.Since you've already learned how to land first hits, I needn't explain the neutral-game setups again. Instead, I'll start right off with how to keep a combo going. Note that you need to react to your opponent's DI in order to follow up, so if you're not landing many combos just give it some time. Comboing well with any character takes practice and experience against human players, and DK is no exception.Just like in the neutral game, grabs are very potent in the combo game. At any point in your combo if it's possible to regrab your opponent, you should almost always do it. DK has an exceptional grab game, and barring extreme circumstances there's rarely a better option to follow up with. It's somewhat of a reset in your combo, since your opponent starts from the ground again.Up-Tilt (U-Tilt) is a great grounded juggle/setup option, mostly because it swipes about a 200 degree area above and to the side of DK. It works great in situations where your opponent is too high (in the air) for a regrab, but too low for an Up-Air.Uair is perhaps DK's best comboing move, and he has quite a few so that's saying something. It's fast, SHFFable (Shorthop Fastfall only; if you do it fast enough the move will autocancel with no need to L-cancel) and sets up great for further Uairs and other options.Nair is great during a combo at mid-percents because it's similar to Falcon's Uair in that it basically forces your opponent to choose the lesser of two evils, and that's not always clear. If your opponent DI's up, he will often eat another Nair or a Fair. If he DIs away, he either sets himself for a Knockdown stagger or offstage at a low height, which are both situations your opponent doesn't want to be in.When used in conjunction with Cargo-Uthrow, Dair is a great tool to do pillar-esque combos on semi-FFers. Since DK is great at tech-chasing, you can often get more damage/a KO if you do a fullhop -> double jump Dair and then fastfall to follow where they land. Be careful though, because your opponent is able to Meteor-Cancel the Dair and counterattack.So you've dealt a lot of damage to your opponent via neutral-game wins, combos, and pressing your advantage in staggered situations. They're around 100%+, depending on character, and you're ready to finish of their stock. Here, I'll explain DK's finishers and the most important setups for landing them.DK's Fair is really strong. It also covers a wide range of area, and combined with aerial drift and DK's running speed is very versatile in when it can land as a followup. Since it's quite slow, it's not really usable as an approach. As I mentioned earlier, you can combo into it against almost every character if you read their DI with Cargo-F/Bthrow, and against several characters you can simply do Fullhop Cargo-Uthrow -> Fair and react to their DI. Unless you've got a fully charged Giant Punch, you should be aiming to finish with this if you can.Fully charged Giant Punch is DK's strongest move, and as such is very good for KOing. Any time you can combo into it around 80% against most characters you definitely should. An interesting point about Giant Punch is that the shoulder hit on it (at the very start of its hit frames) has an upward trajectory, but is still very strong. This is really useful against floatier characters; you can KO them at 60-70%ish if you're able to land it.Hey, Nair has been in every section so far! As I said in the Neutral-game section, Nair is a really good move; its versatility is part of why. Nair is very strong (~as strong as Fox/Falco's Bairs), can be combo'd into, and is also one of his best neutral-game options, so a lot of your kills can come from Nair. Usually if you can combo into Nair at KO percents you can also combo into Fair, but not always.Far from ideal, DK's Bair still has some power behind it, so it can be used as a KO move in a pinch. Essentially a worse Nair in this context.DK's Up-Smash () is very powerful and as I mentioned earlier you can combo into it with Hand Slap and Dair, and it's really good against floatier characters. Against FFers you can also do Cargo-Uthrow -> Upsmash regardless of DI at KO percents (~120%).In Smash, vertical KOs are vastly different from horizontal KOs in a few ways. First, your horizontal location on-stage is irrelevant when you land a vertical KO option, which is far more rapidly changing in play than vertical location. Secondly, a vertical KO requires no interaction between players; often a horizontal KO option requires edgeguarding to convert, and vertical KOs skip this process altogether. So, if you have the option of either hitting your opponent offstage or KOing them vertically, you should take the latter. It seems obvious enough but many players get too caught up in edgeguarding and using DK's more common KO options, so this option is often overlooked.Additionally, while securing a KO is your goal at all times, do not be blinded by your desire to KO your opponent. Fishing for a KO is not only rarely conducive to actually KOing your opponent, it also contributes to play that is very readable and punishable. Since DK is punished quite hard, you really can't afford to do this. Let KOs come to you. Play the Neutral-game patiently and properly and it won't be long until you'll have earned a KO.Unfortunately, not very stock ends nicely with a simple finisher combo. Often times you will have to finish your combo earlier than you'd like, or you've hit them off-stage but not outright KO'd them in a variety of ways. Thankfully, DK is quite proficient at edgeguarding. Being good around the ledge is crucial to doing well in this game, and it's no easy task. Here I'll explain some general edgeguarding concepts, go over some moves DK typically edgeguards with and then explain some general edgeguarding threads and how to approach them.An important mechanic in Project M is. When you grab a ledge, your character becomes invincible for 37 frames, of which 29 are actionable (the other 8 frames are eaten by a "grabbing the ledge" animation). Ledge invincibility is very useful for edgeguarding for obvious reasons. Recoveries are designed with hitboxes incorporated in some way so as to make edgeguarding them require finesse, but what if the edgeguarder has complete invincibility while they try to swat away a recovering opponent? This not only makes edgeguarding easier, but possible when it would otherwise not be.If you are able to, you should edgeguard reactively. If your opponent's character is edgeguardable in a reactive fashion, do it; there's no point in risking things on reads when you otherwise have a guaranteed edgeguarding loop. Anis a cycle in which a character trying to recover is repeatedly hit off-stage, often with the same move, until the knockback of the move becomes so great that they cannot recover (or until they trick the edgeguarder and recover safely). DK will most commonly be doing this with Ledgehop -> Bair. Unfortunately, not every recovery is able to be reacted to. At that point, you're often forced to weigh risk vs. reward against a variety of options, or attempt to read your opponent's recovery based on prior interactions.While you are edgeguarding, an underlying goal you should keep in mind is to cut off options. Against most opponents, their character is capable of doing many different things to recover, down to micro-level things such as how many frames they drift left or right or how hard they drift with their analog stick. You'll find greater success if you shape your edgeguarding game and decisions around limiting and covering as many options as you can with just one of yours. Note that in most cases off-stage edgeguarding options are more successful than on-stage ones, however they carry with them added risk of an edgeguarding reversal. Weigh the risk and reward when you make edgeguarding decisions.F-Tilt is good here or there to swat away your opponent if they're recovering. It's quick, angleable, and has good range. Rarely will you finish an edgeguard with it, though.Similar to F-Tilt, D-Tilt is good to swat your opponent away while edguarding. However, Down-Tilt is different in that its knockback and trajectory is good enough that you can usually finish an edgeguard with it. Its hitbox also hits below the stage, so it's good against characters with below-average sweetspotting ability.Usually performed after a ledge-hop, Bair is good because it covers multiple recovery branches, hits relatively low, and leaves DK pretty safe afterward even if he misses.Spinning Kong () is DK's primary recovery tool. So why is it in the edgeguarding section? The reason is that DK's aerial Up-B has a fairly strong hitbox when it starts, which hits frame 2-5 and he is fully invincible during. Furthermore, unlike other off-stage edgeguarding tools, DK doesn't need enough height to fall downward while edgeguarding with it because he's already moving up with it. Up-B is particularly effective against opponents recovering low; a ledge-drop Up-B will often work in this situation.Against characters with particularly long recovery lag such as Captain Falcon, Sheik, and Marth, you can often do a Ledge-Stand (if under 100%) and grab them, then combo into a finisher. Grab the ledge and threaten an edgehog to force them to recover on-stage, then punish their recovery lag. This is a fairly strong edgeguard loop because it often takes very few repetitions to outright KO someone with.Worth mentioning here is Dash Attack's edgeguarding uses. You can Dash Attack off-stage and Fasfall to catch lower recoveries that are sweetspotting or intercept other recovery options, and due to the Jump-Cancel on it you can combo into Nair or Up-B when you would otherwise be unable to edgeguard.In addition to going through common tools DK uses to edgeguard, I'll describe common recovery threads and explain how to best approach them. Ais a description of a recovering option on a macro level; within that thread, there are multiple different directions/aims/spacings/timings that contribute toward making edgeguarding that particular thread difficult, or the lack thereof making doing so simple. For the purpose of this guide I won't describe any that are reactable; you should be able to deal with those yourself after getting a general idea of how DK functions by the ledge. Additionally, these are simplified categories of recovery threads; much like the rest of this guide, they do not pretend to encompass all possibilities or explain every situation, but rather are designed to be used as a general guide.Like DK, several characters aim to recover high in order to avoid high-risk scenarios. These characters often have recoveries that have little landlag, such as Fox, Falco, Peach, Bowser, and others. This is also the type of recovery that DK often has the most trouble converting on; unless the opponent is at a particularly high %, you will often do best to settle for a Staggered situation. Donkey Kong has to interact with multiple drift patterns and possibilities here, and on many stages even different platforms to recover to. DK doesn't punish these sorts of things particularly hard. A Ledge Jump Nair/Bair can sometimes catch high recovery attempts, but as I said you'll often be forced to take a position ready to take advantage of a staggered situation. Which isn't always bad, by the way, since you can sometimes land a grab.Low recoveries are usually caused by one of two things. First, your opponent's character is particularly good at sweetspotting and/or their other recovery threads are particularly weak. Second, you've hit them hard enough or low enough such that they have no other choice. Obviously, the former is more difficult to deal with and the latter means you're doing things correctly. In most cases against an opponent recovering low, your first step should be to simply grab the ledge. Grabbing the ledge does two things: it grants you ledge invincibility, and it threatens to take away the option to sweetspot with an edgehog. As explained earlier, ledge invincibility is very useful in these situations, and edgeguarding many recoveries would be impossible without it. And with the option taken away, you force a response from your opponent. By doing this, you interact with your opponent before actually interacting with their character. This is quite powerful for obvious reasons, and from here you can often play a reaction-based edgeguard game with ledgehop invincible Bair or ledge-drop Up-B and a simple edgehog depending on your opponents character.Many characters possess multiple recovery options and these characters often have one that recovers on this thread. Examples include Wario, Fox, Falco, Ganondorf, Captain Falcon, Diddy Kong, Ike, and several others. Players will try to trick you by mixing up recovering slightly above the ledge to land on-stage and going directly to the ledge, and it can be difficult or impossible to properly cover both options. Against a lot of these, much like against low recoveries, your usual course of action is to grab the ledge. The main point here is to pressure your opponent to not go to the ledge; if they go to the ledge, they have no landing lag that you can punish and then you have to settle for boxing them out at the ledge. If they go on-stage, you can often punish with a ledgehop Dair or ledgehop waveland grab. If not, ledge-drop Up-B can often cover both on-stage and to the ledge recoveries, and you can also do a ledge-hop Nair in such a way that you hit a bit below the stage as you land onto the stage.Tethers are a unique enough recovery option that they warrant their own section. Link and Toon Link's tethers are Zairs and only accentuate their recovery, while Zero Suit Samus and Ivysaur use them as their primary means of recovery. Unfortunately edgeguarding the Links' tethers is quite difficult unless you have a serious read on their recovery; in this case, a ledge-drop Up-B is often fatal against them. Other times, attempting an edgehog usually does nothing or gives you an Up-B of their own to the face. Edgeguarding ZSS and Ivysaur, however, is actually quite simple after you've forced them to use their tether recovery, although you rarely get a KO out of it. You see, if you're holding onto the ledge while a tether character tries to reel in, they are forced into a somewhat laggy ledge jump animation afterward. Interestingly enough, the amount of time that they have to simply hold their tether is shorter than the amount of time you have to simply hold onto the ledge. This begs an amusing, but effective strategy; hold onto the ledge and wait for your opponent to be forced to do a laggy ledgejump, then ledge hop Nair or Uair. It may not be a decisive edgeguarding KO but it's better than doing nothing. Be wary, however; most tethers have the ability to drop and re-tether a couple times, which foils this strategy unless you're particularly alert.The tide of battle shifts constantly in Smash, and often you'll find yourself on the defense rather than the offense where DK's brutal combos and attacks make him formidable. Donkey Kong's defense isn't stellar, but it's more than enough to get the job done if you keep calm and assess the situation.An important mechanic that I'll actually explain is Crouch Canceling (). CCing is ingrained in almost every character's low and even mid percent game in Project M, and it's a powerful tool against approaches. The concept is, when you're crouching you suffer less KB and Hitstun than usual, by about 33%. More importantly, however, holding down causes Automatic Smash DI toward the ground, and if you are still considered "grounded" after the initial KB of the attack, hitstun is canceled. Since DK is both heavy and falls relatively quickly, his CC is very effective. Unfortunately his options out of a CC are fairly limited; grab is one of his only viable options. Otherwise, a quick swat-away D-Tilt is the main other option.Pressure is one of the most difficult things to both apply and deal with in this game. It makes the victim uncomfortable, and limits the scope of what they're able to do at that moment. While he has some tools to deal with it, Donkey Kong is overall particularly weak to pressure. When you're considering what to do under pressure, you should keep in mind that your overall goal is to reset the position to neutral. The reason pressure is effective is because you are at a disadvantage when you are under pressure, so it stands to reason that escaping it should be your goal. A panic-induced response will rarely grant you success against good players.Just like as if you were standing, you are able to jump while in shield. And with the ability to jump comes the ability to wavedash. Wavedash is a great positioning tool, and its main strength here is that it gives you some movement out of shield without committing much time. Afterward, you will want to return to neutral: dash-dancing is usually your best bet.Rolling is obviously an option while you're in your shield. Unfortunately, it isn't a very good one. Unless your opponent has already committed to something, usually they can react, reposition themselves, and the only thing you've accomplished is changed the location at which you're under pressure. Still, rolling is still something that can work here and there. Its main advantage over other options is that you can buffer it with the C-Stick.Just like with WD, Up-B comes along with the ability to jump out of shield. You're able to perform Up-B during your jumpsquat frames. The initial hitbox on DK's Up-B is quite fast (hits frame 3-5) and is pretty strong. Unfortunately, the problem with it is that it lacks range. An opponent that's spacing around your shield properly can usually avoid the strong hit out of it and punish you. While you can move around after initiating the Up-B, it's still a very heavy commitment and can get you punished hard if used too often. One last thing that many players don't know is that DK's grounded Up-B is reversible. If you press behind DK on the analog stick during the starting frames of his Up-B, he'll turn around before the strong hit comes out. This is useful against players harassing the front of your shield that aren't giving you enough time to grab.DK has one of the longest grab ranges in the game, so a good amount of would-be pressure ends up being unsafe against him. Plus, obviously, grabbing your opponent gets you significant reward. Be careful, however, as grab is very simple to bait and punish. Additionally, it's important to mention that if you want to be able to shieldgrab well, you need to learn how to Shield DI. It's basically Smash DI, but you're in your shield. It can get you grabs you otherwise would have no chance of getting.Donkey Kong's recovery is a bit of a double-edged sword. It's good and bad simultaneously. While it goes an extremely long distance, it is very linear. This means that it's very easy to get caugh in an off-stage edgeguarding loop, and unless you're able to recover high you might find yourself with one less stock. Thankfully, DK's Up-B has very little landing lag; provided you're able to land onstage, it's rare that you'll be punished. And while DK's sweetspot is pretty good, he has trouble getting back on-stage even after he's successfully grabbed the ledge.Every good recovery starts with good survival DI. It's a good thing we've already been over that. DK is very heavy (2nd heaviest in the game), so having good survival DI is complemented nicely with a natural aversion to being KO'd.Each time you recover, you obviously begin off-stage. There's pretty much only 3 things you can do, although you can do most of them in very different ways. You can drift toward the stage without doing anything else, you can use your double-jump to gain height, and you can use your Up-B. Using your Up-B is a very big commitment (it takes nearly a full second and a half to complete an Up-B), so you should really only use it when you either know you'll be able to recover on-stage or when your opponent has forced your hand and you're going to attempt to sweetspot. An important thing to note about DK's aerial Up-B is that during frames 11-42, his outer forearms are invincible. This makes him harder to swat away, causing edgeguarding opponents to get caught up in the spinning gorilla's multihits. One last thing I'll mention is that in some cases it's useful to use DK's Headbutt () to stall your recovery. This gives your opponent more time to position and react to your later recovery, but sometimes it'll trick your opponent into committing to an edgeguarding option which you can then react to and avoid.Ideally, you will have recovered on-stage, and with your very little landlag Up-B, have reset the position to neutral or started your own edgeguard or combo situation. Unfortunately, a lot of characters are good at keeping you out if you recover high, so you'll often have to settle for simply grabbing the ledge instead. DK has a few options from the ledge, but none of them are particularly strong. He doesn't have an invincible ledgehop waveland that characters such as Fox and Sheik are able to abuse to great effect, and his ledgehop aerial options are either too slow or lack the range to properly threaten an on-stage edgeguarder. Under 100%, his Ledge Attack is very quick and has quite a bit of range, but has quite a bit of endlag so if read can be punished quite hard. His Ledge-Jump is pretty good, too, granting him quite a bit of height with little endlag. DK fairs better above his opponent than he does at the ledge in most cases, so it's a good option to keep in mind. In desperation, a ledge hop Up-B headed toward center stage can sometimes work as well. The main idea behind being on the ledge is to avoid being predictable. Being on the ledge isn't fun and can be quite scary, but like anything else, you cannot force your escape or good players will pick you apart and punish you for it. Using your ledge invincibility is also very useful; your opponent can't hit you if you're invincible. Keep your wits about you and remain patient, and your opportunity to get back onstage will come to you.Unfortunately, there's no way I could possibly provide every bit of information that can help you in this guide. This game is far too deep, far too complex for me to do that. It's not even close to solved. I myself am still on my journey to improve. Hopefully reading this guide has left you hungry and wanting more. That's good, because there's a lot more to read. Here is some reading material, not about DK, but about improving as a player in general. Note that most of it is written with Super Smash Bros. Melee in mind; Project M's game mechanics are very similar, so ideologies overlap enough for me to recommend these. The Official Everything Thread - While it's a bit outdated, has a lot of basic information and further resources to read. How to Improve - a compilation - As its name would suggest, this thread is a compilation of various essays and guides written by many different high-level (and some not so high-level) Super Smash Bros. Melee players. Drastic Improvement - A collection of theories on improvement, good for anyone who is just starting or who have hit a wall. Compete Complete - Wobbles' personal blog on improvement, Smash, and the competitive mindset. Eskimo Sister - Wobbles' old blog, still has quite a bit of good info even though some of it is Ice Climbers-specific.That's about all I have for you right now. If I ever write up a more specific DK guide or general guide on Project M, I'll most likely put it here.I feel that a Thanks section is in order, since while I have put a great deal of effort into improving as a player, writing and thinking about Smash theory, and writing this very guide, I would be nowhere without standing on the shoulders of those who came before me. I wish I could list everyone, but there would be far too many people to list, so I'll try to keep it short.To, without whom the best fighting game of all time would not exist. Without Project M, I would have quit Smash long ago, and never would have reached the point where I am today. Thank you for your concept, diligence, and ever-impressive determination to get things done the right way rather than the easy way.To, whose Smash expertise and theory discussions have been the source of many of my breakthroughs as a player. Your elaborations on the concept of Stagger inspired a great deal of my playstyle and the section of the same name in this guide. Thank you.To, whose Ice Climbers guide subconciously influenced this guide to great degree. The weeks I was generously allowed to spend at your home in the summer of 2011 were enlightening, and I will never forget them. Thank you for that, for your feedback on this very guide, and for always being up for Smash discussion.To, who I have far more in common with than I originally thought. I admire your approach to competitive Smash and how far you've gotten with it, and relate to it quite a bit. Thank you for sharing the same passion for discussion as I do and for your support in the very early stages of this guide's creation. I still have much to learn from you and I look forward to that.To, whose patience in this game knows no bounds. I learned so much from you in our absurd 18 hour smashfest. Thank you. I hope you don't truly give up Smash, as I don't want to be the best DK player. Not yet. I know not where your life is headed or if Smash will no longer be a major part of it, but I wish you well in your endeavors, whatever they may be.We've gone over several concepts, about Donkey Kong in Project M specifically as well as about the game in general. If you've implemented most of what I've talked about in this guide, you should not only be comfortable using DK in a wide range of situations, but more importantly you should understand the theory and reasoning behind why various options are chosen in those situations. With this knowledge, you should now be able to analyze situations that I didn't explain, as well as respond to new developments in the metagame and, yes, actual changes to the game as its development team continues to work toward its completion. If you have the talent and put in the effort, and probably spend a good amount of money traveling to and entering tournaments, you're well on your way to turning some heads with our beloved gorilla. I wish you good luck in your endeavors to compete in Project M, it's an exhilarating and satisfying game to do so in. Please, play DK in tournaments. I'm really lonely. ;~;And with that, I draw this venture to a close. Thank you for reading.-Strong Bad