DONKEY KONG
WEAK TIER
"Always the bridesmaid, never the bride..." That analogy is the best way to describe the Donkey Kong amiibo. If you want to spend hours and hours to get him to almost beat other amiibos, thats about all you're going to get out of him! This amiibo is hopeless imo. I have tried so many methods and he always turns out mediocre at best. I've seen people have luck with him but I feel he's just too slow to be able to handle the other amiibos. DO NOT train him as an aerial based amiibo. He botches almost all of his aerials and gets punished, he tries to short hop forward air and gets punished hard for it, when he goes to do his back airs he jumps too high. He doesn't seem to be able to land his punches either. IMO he just doesn't offer a lot. No True Combos, No Counter, No Lingering Hit Boxes, A Kill Throw that he wont use. He's just a big pain in the ass to train. I've retired him in my tournaments since he's just gonna be a free win. He has never scored past the bottom 2. In my attempts to retrain this amiibo, I would avoid F Air, he will do it anyway. I literally spammed back throw kills to try and get him to do it, he will use his forward throw instead. I try to get him to juggle with up tilts and he wont do it. This amiibo doesn't do anything you teach him to do really. The only success he has is grabbing them to death and maybe getting a successful smash attack or up air off. That's about as effective as this amiibo will ever get.
PROS:
- Very Heavy
- Has a Kill Throw
- Good in Team/Free For All Matches
- Hits Hard
CONS:
- Terrible Vertical Recovery
- Struggles vs Fast Opponents
- No True Combos
- Slow Smash Attacks
- F Air can cause him to trip himself when he short hops it, leading to punishes
- Prioritizes F Throw over B Throw
- Won't really do what you want him to do
TRAINING MUSTS:
- He doesn't seem to learn anything, but you might as well try these and see if you have luck, lol
- Avoid F Air like the plague
- Teach him to gimp with down air over the ledge
- Utilize all Tilts, Try to get him to juggle with Up Tilt
- Keep him mostly on the ground, you don't want this monkey jumping around
- If using aerials, use Back Air mostly or Neutral Air, do not use F Air, the amiibo doesn't use it properly
- Focus Grabs and Pummel Them often, very important
- Teach him to kill with his back throw, do this often
- Utilize all smash attacks and show him he can kill with them
- Show him how to kill with Back Air
- Don't use the wind up punch at all when training him
Hey there! I see yet another person is struggling with the DK amiibo. I can offer you some tips, but I don't know all there is to this amiibo just yet, and am currently testing out various training methods. This probably will become a big dump of info, so I apologize if it’s too much.
ReplyDeleteI feel that DK is one of the more special amiibos, in that he requires a lot more work and dedication than say, Mario. DK requires special 1on1 training, namely in reinforcing which moves it should use. The biggest issue in training a DK is getting it not to spam ineffective or situational moves. The two biggest offenders are Fair and Giant Punch. Fair is a rather obvious move you should be avoiding, but Giant Punch can be as bad, if not, worse than Fair. I recommend restarting the match should it land one of these moves, on top of not using them against the amiibo. The problem with Giant Punch is that the amiibo will not fully charge the move (on occasion, it will fully charge it) and proceed to use short hop>empty Giant Punch as an approach.
Some things I've noticed that DK will do, regardless of what you've taught it are: Cargo Uthrow and Cargo Dthrow. The amiibo, from what I can tell, will not ever use another throw (outside of the rare Cargo Fthrow, which I did not teach it). DK will also edgeguard with Fsmash at level 40. This isn't really bad unless the opponent begins recovering above DK and punishes it, to which DK should adapt and counter with Uairs and Bairs when the opponent is above them and offstage. The amiibo will also feel more inclined to use Fsmash in battle, which will have varying results. DK also has a bad habit of using full hop Bair instead of short hop Bair, which will cause it to miss easy punishes.
When training the amiibo yourself, I feel it is necessary to let the amiibo land and kill you with Uair and Nair. Uair can be baited out by staying above the amiibo, and is even easier should the amiibo use Cargo Uthrow. My amiibo did learn to use Uair, Nair, and Bair this way, and will use those moves often, but also in conjunction with Fair. I feel it also necessary to emphasize all of DK's tilts, and jab combo. They issue lies mostly in getting hit by these moves, as they have low kill potential (aside from Utilt). I believe that teaching the amiibo to use Dsmash over its other smash attacks would be very beneficial since the amiibo's Dsmash will become much more powerful, and Dsmash in general is faster and covers more distance.
Please don't get hit by the amiibo's Giant Punch, ever. (cont'd)
(cont’d) I feel the best way to train this amiibo is in Slow Smash, so you can react faster. I also think that giving yourself 60-80% handicap at mid-later levels will help DK become more aggressive and mobile. This also helps teach DK to use Uair and Bair often as it will be more likely to kill with them. Should you feel DK doesn't use a certain move enough, give it 300% handicap and kill with that move for about 15 stocks. Make sure to bait out and die to the moves you want it to learn. I also recommend that you never let DK play a level 9 CPU until after its training is complete, and I think this may apply to other amiibos, but I am unsure how it learns from them.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest problem the DK has is learning how to approach. Its approach options are usually short hop Fair or short hop uncharged Giant Punch. Getting DK to have a solid ground game should be prioritized over an air game, but it is difficult to do so because there needs to be so much emphasis on which aerials DK should use.
I've retrained my one DK amiibo plenty of times, and although it has impressed me a few times, I always felt unsatisfied. This is why I've decided to put some real effort into retraining it so I can create the perfect DK amiibo. I hope this wall of text proved useful on the Dos and Don'ts of training a DK amiibo. I'll be sure to let you know if I find a training program that gets DK to play properly, or just not spam Fair and Giant Punch. I like the guides you have and overall dedication to training amiibos. Good luck, and have a nice day!
Thanks for your input! Yea, from reading the issues you faced, I had a lot of the same ones, especially with him not using anything other than cargo throws and f air even when I don't use it. Ya know, it shouldn't be this hard to make an amiibo good, and that's why I feel he's weak. I've retrained him atleast 5 times and always been disappointed. If you find a way to make him rival good amiibos, I will definitely be intrigued by it. Thanks for putting the work into him! Keep me updated!
DeleteGlad I could be of use! I decided to play against my amiibo today and noticed that it used Fair and Giant Punch much less than I expected him to. Because I let him land so many Uairs on me during training, coming down on him with an aerial is almost impossible. The amiibo also will attempt to use Bair and Uair to break out of combos. He was fairly grounded too, and made good use of his tilts and jab (he really likes jab). I'll mess around with him some more and I'll let you know if I find anything.
DeleteI have a Donkey Kong amiibo. He's somehow at least the 2nd best of my 12 Amiibos, if not as good as Bowser, which is also my best, despite the tier list. He was quite difficult to train him to be good, but one day he somehow became VERY good after a certain type of training I don't remember. Also to note that I did an small, simple Amiibo Tournament (When I had 8 amiibos), and he finished at 2nd place, losing to Bowser in the finals, after beating my Pac man and Yoshi (Which funnily are in the same tiers as him). But there is time that he can beat my Bowser, too, despite the fact that Close-Range offensive fighting is what seems to be my Bowser's strong point to fighting enemies.
ReplyDelete-Luigi to Very Strong Tier
ReplyDelete-Bowser Jr to Strong Tier
-Donkey Kong to Average Tier
-Link to Strong Tier
-Palutena to Strong Tier
-Meta Knight to Weak Tier
-Fox to Strong Tier
-Captain Falcon to Strong Tier
-Little Mac to Overpowered Tier
-Villager to Average Tier
-Jigglypuff to Average Tier
-Pac-Man to Strong Tier
-Ryu to Very Strong Tier
-Mii Swordfighter to Weak Tier
For DK, I've found some success teaching him to do these things:
ReplyDelete-Avoid ALL air attacks.
-Prioritize Jab, it's his best move.
-Teach him to cargo grab, then walk the the edge of the stage and throw downwards.
-Use all tilts.
-Give him the Stubborn Headbutt custom, it's an instant shield break.(It can be dodged.)
-Teach him to play defensively.
Hope this helps.
Although you've retired him from your Tournaments, but after training up my DK amiibo, I might as well share this anyways.
ReplyDeleteIt is possible to teach him to kill with up tilt. With enough rage, it can be a reliable option, especially against the lighter half of the roster.
It's not much, but it's something.