On DK's Dash Attack
Kong Kick Foot with indefinite possibilities
DK’s dash attack is one of the most misunderstood moves in Melee. Many believe it’s Donkey Kong’s worst and I understand why they’d think that. But today I’d like to set aside preconceptions of the Kong’s foot and focus our attention on how it’s actually stepping.
The strong hitbox of dash attack comes out f9 and is the slowest of all his normals. On f12 it switches to the late hitbox and on f21, all hitboxes are gone. It’s not until f54 passes that the Kong becomes actionable, making what’s suppose to be a burst attack option as slow as a smash attack when whiffed.
But let’s say you do get the hit, what happens next?
Both hitboxes will pop the opponent up and slightly forward. It’s one of those moves that actually knocks you toward your opponent, up and over their head like a Samus or Peach down smash. DI’ing away is going to keep you in front of DK while DI’ing straight up will move you slightly behind. DI’ing toward the move will send you FLYING over DK’s head - a quarter to half stage lengths away. I could see this being a great reverse option when getting up from ledge.
My guess is that because of how much endlag DK experiences, the designers wanted any opponent hit by the move to feel just as immobilized, thus they cause it to inflict incredible amounts of hitstun, between 47-55f of stun at reasonable percents. This gives DK between 2-14f of advantage under the rare circumstances that he can actually follow up, because the knockback for this move is really quite weird.
Your characters gravity variable dictates how high up they fly. I sort of lump them into two categories - those who get knocked onto platforms and those who exit stun still in the air. Consulting the SuperCombo wiki and scrolling down to Gravity, most everyone above Marth on this list I would place in the ‘gets knocked onto plats’ list. Marth and below are where I’m going to assume them airborne after hit. Something to note about the plat landers - if they don’t land on a plat, they can almost always double jump before hitting the ground. This includes Fox, Falco, Falcon, Shiek. If you notice they aren’t doing this and giving you a tech chase, capitalize on this opportunity. It won’t be true against everyone, but we kind of need to turn any chance into an opportunity we get with this move!
For the record, you have to get Jigglypuff to 400% before she dies off the top of Pokemon Stadium from dash attack. DK’s short hop up-air kills her at 90%.
Now lets discuss the funny business that comes from late hitboxes, CC’ing and ASDI-down.
One of my favorite qualities of this move is how long the hitbox lingers. Its late hitbox, which lasts the final 2/3rds of the move’s activity, is something people will often just run into assuming you’ve already whiffed what you were going for. Instead BOOM! Foot meets face and you’re at another advantage.
Believe it or not, the late hitbox has set knockback, meaning you could totally lab out its uses for combo starters or kill confirms in different matchups. Think of it as about 20% the knockback that a low percent strong hit would do. Stun timing’s might arguably be better, with stun duration being decided by weight - 38f for Bowser the heaviest, 51f for Pichu the lightest. Most of the high tiers will be around 43-46f of stun. This makes follows up against floaties a little easier but that goes both ways. If they recognize what happened, you might want to hold shield incase they come down on you with an aerial but if you suspect they don’t know, you’ve got the change to decide which aerial to punish with. Late hits that send a spacy off stage surely have some gimp potential, so get creative!
CC is where things get pretty bad for DK. If the opponent Crouch Cancels the dash attack, they’ll go less far and become actionable before you by about 10f. CC’ing the strong hit is the worst that could happen, even a Puff could recognize the situation and land on you with an aerial. Late hit is potentially a little more forgiving. Most characters will be low enough to the ground that their aerial might not come out. Still, most could just wait to land and hit you with a quick, strong option pretty safely.
Sometimes you might notice a dash attack instantly knocks them down without ever popping them up. The only way this can happen is if they’re using ASDI down in tandem with CC. I haven’t learned the dark magic that is floor hugging, but if you think your opponent has, you might want to just say thankful for this knowledge about their play style and stop using dash attack in neutral. Any character at any percent can implement this hard counter, follow up with a tech in place then banish your stock to the shadow realm.
Now that you know all their is to know about the leader of the bunch’s fat foot, are you curious about how to use it better? Me too! But I haven’t labbed that sort of thing out yet. Toss me a sub to help me dig deeper (a sub is one fuel unit in my data mine!)
Sources:
https://ikneedata.com/calculator.html
https://meleeframedata.com/donkey_kong
https://wiki.supercombo.gg/w/Super_Smash_Bros._Melee/Attributes