King Dedede

**King Dedede** is a character found in the Kirby series. He has been playable since Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

## Attributes

King Dedede has the usual attributes of heavyweight characters: high KOing power, slow mobility/attacks, high range, fast falling speed (the fastest in the game), and large size. His tilts and smash attacks, which are largely disjointed hitboxes, combine with one of the more versatile projectiles in the game, Waddle Dees, for devastating effect. Dedede's recovery combines four midair jumps with an up special move that gains great vertical distance, has armor, and delivers a powerful meteor smash upon its descent when not canceled. Even though his recovery is predictable due to the Super Dedede Jump's slow speed and inability to grab the ledge at all unless canceled, his overall recovery is much harder to gimp compared to other heavyweights' recovery. He is easy to hit offstage but he can still almost always make it back. Although he is the fastest faller in the game, his falling acceleration is not very fast so it is more beneficial than harmful. As such, this makes King Dedede less vulnerable to chain throws and allows him to pull off two back aerials in a single short hop. King Dedede is also the fourth heaviest character, with the fastest falling speed, giving him the best vertical endurance in the game (noticeably longer than the second most resistant vertical KO character, Snake). He is also great at momentum canceling; Link is the only character in the game that has a more notable benefit from vertical momentum canceling (though Dedede's vertical endurance is still notably better). Even though his basic horizontal momentum canceling is rather poor, the Super Dedede Jump can be used as a difficult but effective horizontal momentum canceling technique (but because of King Dedede's very slow air speed and the fact that he can't use his jumps or aerials after, jumping is generally a safer Momentum Canceling in most cases). Due to the large amount of horizontal momentum it negates, it gives Dedede the fourth best maximum horizontal endurance in the game. This, combined with his far and very hard to gimp recovery, can make him a dangerously tough match-up for many characters that lack reliable KO moves with high knockback scaling.

Dedede is good at keeping pressure on the opponent, despite his very slow movement in the air and on the ground (third slowest dash speed and worst air speed). Dedede has reach, power, favorable hitboxes, and attack speed mixed throughout his entire arsenal — with arguably his best attack, the back aerial, possessing all four attributes. Despite being a super heavyweight and having good KO moves, KOing can be difficult at times due to his KO moves either having slow start-up/ending lag, being forced to have the opponent in the air, being predictable, and/or having low horizontal reach. This can be one of his biggest problems, as almost every attack Dedede uses has some sort of lag. However, his up tilt, arguably his best finisher, has great vertical reach with a very large and long lasting hitbox, with great vertical knockback (it is the third strongest up tilt in the game and KOs at percentages similar to that of Snake's). While it is a great KO move in some situations, on platform-less stages such as Final Destination, it can have difficulty KOing without setting up as its hitbox doesn't extend that far from Dedede's body.

Despite this, he excels at edge-guarding and gimping. He is a versatile edgeguarder, with many edgeguard options. He can edgeguard with a back or forward aerial wall of pain, both of which are powerful aerials that reliably KO under 150%. He can gimp recoveries with thrown Waddle Dees, his forward tilt, and his down tilt. His forward smash is especially deadly on recovering opponents, often KOing any recovering opponent above 25%. Even his dash attack can be used for edgeguarding due to its hitbox having far horizontal reach and having long duration. A crafty Dedede can even fool an opponent into a KO at 40% by using his forward smash, although this is risky as his forward smash (the strongest uncharged smash in the game) is extremely laggy despite its reach (which includes a shockwave slightly in front of the hammer). From a distance, Dedede can prod his opponent with his quick forward tilt, the furthest reaching standard attack in the game, or he can use his Waddle Dee Toss to toss living projectiles at the opponent, which are capable of attacking of their own accord and absorbing projectiles to defend Dedede. Waddle Dee Toss can not be properly reflected (excluding Gordos). The danger of the odd Gordo is also an excellent pressure, as they are extremely strong KO projectiles. Dedede can also perform Dededecide, or Regicide, easiest when King Dedede is offstage for punishing characters close to the edge or edge guarders, though these are not very useful used onstage because it gives the opponent a long time to escape from Inhale even when they are at high damage. Although Dedede can keep pressure on opponents well, he himself is very susceptible to projectiles (although Waddle Dees can block projectiles), air camping by characters like Wario, (though with his huge defense it can be hard to approach and get the lead), and meteor smashes (though he can recover from them easily if not KOd by them given his great vertical recovery) due to being a slow, large target. That means he can be tough to get close for damage without high damage risks because of his amazing grab game, but because of his very slow mobility and lack of a good enough projectile to be used to force or stop approaches it forces the opponent to camp very hard against him. As a result of the opponent being forced to camp, King Dedede matches tend to take a long time against many characters.

Where Dedede really shines is in his ability to transition defense into a powerful offense. With versatile throws and among the best chain throws in the game, many characters can be easily punished while approaching Dedede. His down throw can chain throw many characters regardless of damage percent due to having set knockback, and he is capable of infinitely chain throwing Donkey Kong, Bowser, Wolf, Samus, Mario, and Luigi (though in the last three cases, he has to pummel after 5 throws to refresh it so the stale-move negation doesn't remove the infinite, and because of his very slow pummel, it is possible to mash fast enough to escape from the pummel until about 120%). He can also chain throw anyone weighing 85 (Marth or heavier) infinitely against a wall. Dedede's forward throw ends chain throws that have reached the edge with significant damage, with the added bonus of putting opponents into a recovery situation, where Dedede can begin utilizing his amazing edgeguard game which is deadly against characters with a bad recovery like Link and to a lesser extent, characters with a slow recovery like Snake. His back throw is very strong, both in knockback and in damage (16%, the most damaging throw in the game), and can KO at higher percentages when performed from the edge. Dedede's grab game, which is augmented by the longest non-tether grabbing reach in the game and an easy shield grab, is also complimented by his excellent range all around. Dedede also has two very quick, powerful moves to get the opponent off him while in close, outside of grabbing: his horizontal-knockback down tilt and the aforementioned up tilt.

While a Dedede player must be wary of their weaknesses, in the end, they can use his excellent defensive game, survivability, range, power, pressure ability, and grab game to overcome them against most characters.

## Palette swaps / Alternate costumes

1. **Red**
2. **Brown**: Based on his monochrome sprite in *Kirby's Dream Land*.
3. **Pink**: Based on one of his alternate colors in multiplayer mode of *Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards*.
4. **Orange**: Based on one of his alternate colors in multiplayer mode of *Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards*.
5. **Blue**: Based on one of his alternate colors in multiplayer mode of *Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards*.
6. **Purple**: Based on one of his alternate colors in *Kirby Air Ride*.
7. **Gray**: Based on one of his alternate colors in *Kirby Air Ride*.
8. **Green**: Based on one of his alternate colors in *Kirby Air Ride*.
9. **Yellow**: Based on one of his alternate colors in *Kirby Battle Royale* and *Kirby Star Allies*.
10. **Violet**: Based on his sprite in *Kirby Mass Attack* during the battle at Necro Nebula.
11. **Magenta**: Based on Masked Dedede's Revenge in *Kirby: Triple Deluxe*.
12. **Black**: Based on Parallel Dedede in *Kirby Star Allies*.