Basic Information

King K. Rool is primarily a Tank character, in that he'll wait around in neutral and utilize his armor and unreactable burst range to force his way in. His Projectiles are unconventional, but work great against other projectiles, giving the croc great Anti-Projectile tools and making it hard to camp him. He excels at challenging approaches and walling people out, letting them run into his armored attacks. This can be somewhat frustrating for players to fight against, and as a result, people will always talk about how annoying he is. Good! We didn't pick this character to be heroes, did we?

A common misconception is that people think K. Rool is a zoner. This is false. K. Rool's projectiles have limited use for zoning due to their committal nature, and his burst options and aggressive playstyle run counter to that notion. This contradicts the very essence of zoning, which is utilizing less committal projectiles to control space and keep the opponent in an area the character profits from, such as how Chandelure operates in Pokken Tournament. While K. Rool can use his projectiles to zone, this is not his primary objective as a character and attempting it will get you absolutely destroyed. "Zoner" is an extreme term for a defensive character, which K. Rool absolutely is. He fits moreso into the Juggernaut Archetype, a heavily armored fighter who basically uses his shield to attack with while making sudden bursts of speed to win off of the slightest opportunity.

However, K. Rool can pilot a variety of playstyles to success. Zoo employs a defensive playstyle, Dera and Tropical play a rushdown style, and KirbyKid plays a kind of "touch of death" playstyle. Understanding this is important, as K. Rool has a weird amount of variety for a Superheavy that allows him to pull this off. You, the player, will need to take this into account and switch when the situation calls for it. This is where players fail - there are many ways to play K. Rool!

Now that you’ve got a rough idea of his playstyle, it’s important to understand him as a character. That is, his mechanics. K. Rool has a lot of specialized mechanics to him, which need to be understood. The following three tools are the most well-known parts of the character.

Belly Super Armor

Belly Super Armor - or simply Belly Armor - is the most tilting thing in the universe. It's armor on K. Rool’s belly that tanks hits on specific frames of his attacks with a fixed 16 frames of hit lag. You will be hearing this stuff clang in your dreams; it's one of the main reasons this fat bastard is viable in Ultimate. He is balanced around it and understanding how it works is mandatory for playing him successfully.

To manage armor, practice flashing your eyes over it to quickly recognize the cracks. The easiest way to do that is during the hit lag when tanking an attack, as the game is paused for a moment anyway. This is a core fundamental of armor management. Usually, when Belly Armor is low, players tend to opt for FAir, UTilt and Jab as attacks to prioritize. However, shielding and playing defensively is much more encouraged, as well as stalling when it's possible, like off stage in disadvantage or at the ledge. Shielding also gives a good look at the belly to ensure you’re at least above 12.2 HP. Side Taunt is technically the best but you're probably only doing that between stocks.

Remember that armor can still be broken in one hit by some moves. It’s rare and often requires an extremely laggy attack to perform. There are some MUs where just a few attacks will break it, such as against Ganondorf or Terry, which are notorious for having high damage dealt within a few hits. In such matchups, it’s encouraged to try and use Belly Armor less liberally, but again, breakage is rare.

Crownerang

Crownerang is a pretty crazy projectile. From Frames 6-63, you get cumulative Damage-Based Armor; this is separate from Belly Armor and is colloquially referred to as Crown Armor. It takes 14.4% to break. This takes into account the 1v1 multiplier, otherwise it takes 12% to break (which is also the value to consider when looking up what it can and can't tank). If you look at damage values on Ultimate Frame Data, you have to take into account the Freshness Bonus. This means you have to multiply each value by 1.05 to get the actual damage dealt.

Example: Corrin's BAir deals 12% with a Full Hop. We can ignore the 1v1 multiplier since it applies to both the Crown Armor and the Attack. But when the move is fresh it will deal 12%×1.05=12.6%. This means it will break Crown Armor when fresh. Staled once however it only deals 12%-(12%×0.09)=10.92%, which is less than 12% and won't break Crown Armor. If they Short Hop the move deals 12.6%×0.85=10.71% when fresh. Which again, will not break Crown Armor.

Crown Armor's cumulative nature means that multiple hits can cause the armor to go a bit awry. The following equation determines breakage if multiple hits are factored in: (Base Damage of previous hits) × 1.2 + (Base Damage of final hit) > 12% (armor w/out 1v1 mult). However, the 1.2× multiplier can't be represented properly in code, leading to floating point errors, so attacks like R.O.B's Arm Rotor can still break it, even though no amount of damage reaches the threshold.

Example: Palutena's Explosive Flame deals 1.5% for the multihits, which is 9% total; multiplied by 1.2 this equals 10.8%, which the equation will take into consideration. The final hit deals 5.5%, which won't factor in the 1.2× multiplier. If we tally this up with the aforementioned equation, this equals 16.8%, which will break Crownerang's armor.

Crownerang has absurd priority as a projectile, due to being its own entity that spawns hitboxes. It sounds complicated, but trust me it isn’t. Crown has two type of hitboxes: When traveling forward (known simply as First Hit Crown, or just Crown) and on Frame 65 when it returns (known as Returning Crown). If a projectile beats Crown, it only negates the First Hit, and the Returning Crown will still happen due to being a new hitbox. This is because, once again, it’s its own entity. Get it? Good. We have a document for this too.

Returning Crown will follow K. Rool wherever he goes while lowering in speed to a maximum of 0.4x the usual throw speed. It will keep doing this until one of three things occurs:
1. It gets detected by K. Rool’s Crown Catch (CC) Radius
2. It lands on the floor and becomes an item (signified by an arrow appearing above it)
3. It hits a wall and falls straight down (despawning on the bottom blast line or leading to into the 2. option)

If Crown is detected by K. Rool’s CC Radius, which is roughly his entire body, it will be picked up by K. Rool with an animation with an FAF of 18. This is called Crown Catch. If it's picked up when lying on the ground as an item, it's 28 Frames instead. This is called Crown Pickup. Both of these are considered to be specials, meaning you can B-Reverse them.

It is possible to avoid the Crown Catch/Pickup Animation by using any given "unavoidable animation". The Catch/Pickup Animation only triggers when you're standing, walking, dashing or airborne without performing any additional action. This means things like attacking and shielding can be used to skip the Animation. One notable action for doing so is the Jumpsquat, which lasts for 3 Frames before jumping. During these 3 Frames the Catch/Pickup Animation can't be triggered. In practice, this means you can, for example, hold shield and buffer a short hop Fair and during the whole sequence you can laglessly catch crown.

Down Throw and Down Tilt

Down Throw is a bury throw, which puts the opponent into the ground in a Buried state that they have to mash out of. DThrow has its own equation for this, specifically 60 + (0.75×Damage before throw). DTilt, on the other hand, doesn't use this and instead conforms to normal bury mechanics. Here’s a table from the Lab Repository displaying the advantage.

For every input from the opponent from the frame they're buried onwards, the total frames go down by a set amount. A directional input can be done once every frame and lowers the mash frames by 8. For a button input, it’s 14.4 frames every other frame. Then, once the opponent pops out, they cannot do any action for 12 frames. This applies for both DThrow and DTilt.

The main differences between DThrow and DTilt are as follows:

1. Rage does not affect DThrow

2. Stock advantage does not affect DThrow

3. DTilt's frame data often makes the bury unreactable, giving a high chance of you gaining frames on that basis.

Due to the input requirements, there is very little chance of a human being able to get out easily, and virtually nobody will do it frame perfectly. You can even wait for an opponent to mash out and punish with USmash or UAir, which is a popular method of deterring mashing. However, others go for iDA or UTilt as “true” options, so pick whichever you think is best. Upon popping out, characters will suffer 12 frames of lag. Thus, even with peak reaction time and TAS mashing, the opponent will still be in a form of hitlag. This decreases their chances of being able to escape a punish even further.

Usually, K. Rools will start using DThrow from around 75%. This is where Jab starts becoming more reliable, and thus opens up a few things;

• DThrow -> Jab 123 into a ledgetrap situation

• DThrow -> s.Jab 1 -> Regrab to force mashing, due to buries storing knockback. Popularized by InfernoKong.

  • This isn’t an infinite; it is easily avoided through heavy mashing which is why this is a strong way to force mashing. It also stops after 3 reps, bouncing an opponent instead.

Once an opponent reaches around 80%ish, USmash starts becoming true, which is where a 50/50 starts. If the opponent mashes, USmash hits and kills at ~95%. If the opponent doesn’t mash, l.FSmash hits and can kill even earlier (l.FSmash deals more damage, thus being optimal). This is a core element of killing and robbing games with the obese overlord, so be sure to learn it.

Anyway that’s K. Rool’s 3 big mechanics covered. He has more, but they’ll be explained as time goes on as well as some more DThrow stuff.

King K. Rool excels at building damage, catching landings, controlling space with projectiles, and surviving for a very, very long time. He also excels at edgeguarding and ledgetrapping, which gives him an above-average advantage state. His grab game is also quite strong, with each throw having a use. Generally, all his moves have unique utility as well.

Most of K. Rool’s attacks are designed to be unchallengeable on startup: decently fast, with heaps of protection on the moves as they come out, sometimes even a bit after (that being Belly Armor or Intangibility) This is offset by the high Cooldown on these attacks as well however, giving him a bit of a wonky moveset.

K. Rool, being a tank character with armor on a majority of his moves, is great at taking hits and is specifically designed to trade hits. This compounds his already immense survivability, backed by his massive weight (133 units), above-average fall speed (1.7, enough to get 2 frames of landing lag off a SHFF instead of 6), and a long-ranged recovery move with decent protection. He also has access to a few good mixups before he burns his double jump off-stage, which allows him to deter edgeguarding attempts decently well. His recovery is linear, but most of the time hard to challenge. His Counter complements his Trading characteristic and helps him deal with projectiles and off-stage pressure. While he may stay in disadvantage for a while, he has to be taken to well over 100% before he's actually threatened with a KO. In practice this means the opponent has to win a lot of interactions in advantage to get a kill on K. Rool.

K. Rool’s damage building is no joke: Very few of his moves deal below 10%. His usual starter combo - FThrow iDA - deals over 30% with a ledgetrap situation after a lot of the time. Some characters with particularly large % ranges for FThrow iDA can have FAir used to start the combo, thus allowing for it to be strung to over 45%. Even his UThrow deals 20.1% fresh, and his pummel deals around 2% a time. His Combo Game mostly consists of Landing Aerials and Returning Crown. Landing Fair/Nair lead into Grounded Attacks and Grab until High Percent. Returning Crown can always combo and even kill.

In terms of catching landings, K. Rool’s Crownerang and Kannonballs travel at the perfect speed to control space to hamper landings. This is usually where they excel, as opponents typically exhaust their landing options before they hit the ground. UAir is another amazing way to juggle opponents due to the massive damage, long hitbox duration, and low landing lag when canceled on platforms. It has a lot endlag but that hardly matters when you land shortly after. Dash Attack is his best tool to catch landings with due to the Belly Armor, Speed and Killpower of the move. It wins against any Landing Aerial in the game.

K. Rool’s Propellerpack recovery is frequently underestimated, even by his own players. Due to K. Rool's weight he is virtually immune to Stage Spikes as getting a launch speed of 6 (extremely high, required for an untechable to occur) is very difficult. For scale, Joker's Arsene Bair isn’t untechable until around 210%. If you hold down, this can actually make it even later. For scale, Lucina BAir only becomes untechable at 239.7% if K. Rool holds down and techs. This is a massive benefit to K. Rool’s survivability. The only vulnerability is from the side (the opponent needs to be in between K. Rool and the stage), which many characters aren't equipped to do. This also means K. Rool's safest path to recover from is directly below the ledge. Up Air can be used to stall, gaining further horizontal distance.

K. Rool’s ledgetrapping is very strong. NAir and FAir’s active frames also cover a lot of an opponent’s ledge options. If they stall at the ledge Down Angled F-Tilt or Short Hop Dair will hit them. These four tools make up his basic ledgetrapping, with Blunderbuss and Crown offering additional options.

K. Rool’s Nair is notoriously good for edgeguarding due to the armor and knockback pretty much gimping half the cast. He also has two Meteor Smashes - Dair and Bair - which can both 2-frame (Bair isn't recommended there, but Dair is busted for that). Dair has a very large hitbox hitting below the stage on the edge, making opponents even easier to KO this way. Spamming Short Hop Dair at the ledge is the safest and most optimal way to edgeguard most of the time. Crownerang and Kannonballs can also harass mid to even high-ish recoveries. Due to all of these facts, K. Rool’s edgeguarding is quite potent and will be how he takes many early stocks. Going off stage is risky however due to the high endlag of his aerials and slow recovery, which means if he misses he'll often be in disadvantage himself. Hence why Short Hop Dair at ledge is optimal.

On the other hand, K. Rool’s disproportionate strengths are met with equally disproportionate downsides. We'll ignore his genocidal political views and insanity for this guide, but know that those exist too!

The obese overlord definitely befits his name, having the largest hurtbox in the game. Anyway, while it isn’t jutting out like a lot of people believe (I disproved this through CrossMod visuals and in-game testing), it is still VERY big. Thus, he will be hit by everything - and I mean everything - which doesn't help with his F4 airdodge, making him one of the easiest characters to combo in the game. It also leaves him substantially more vulnerable in neutral, which is usually where he likes to be. Projectiles, large ranged moves, and such will all hit this croc very easily.

To make matters worse, K. Rool’s combo escape options are quite slow. Ignoring his airdodge, NAir is his usual escape option with F6 armor and an F7 hitbox, which is still...very slow, and will only catch overextending players. Technically Gut Check is as fast as an airdodge with its F4 intangibility and F5 counter, but way more commital. This character can be juggled and comboed forever, and his survivability only goes so far.

K. Rool’s mobility is fairly sub-par, with some of the slowest walk, run and air speed in the entire game. While characters are generally fast in this game, K. Rool is still slow. He has a great Burst Range due to his Dash Attack and Dash Grab, but is bad at getting close enough to the opponent to use said Burst Range.

K. Rool’s long endlag means he has to commit to attack almost all the time. Very few moves can be considered a low commitment, with those being Jab, Fair, and Nair. Even then it’s a bit of a stretch. Due to this, the popularity of bait and punish in Ultimate leads to him being one of the characters hurt most by it. The metagame is heavily stacked against high endlag characters. With the prior issues considered, you can see where K. Rool’s issues really start to add up.

K. Rool’s air game is fairly decent, but does have gaping holes in it. Not one of his aerials autocancel out of SH - not even NAir, his main OOS - and as a result he will have to suffer landing lag a lot. His aerials are fairly quick for a superheavy, but he will still be out-framed fairly frequently by faster characters.

K. Rool’s shield game is extremely poor, with his fastest reliable option being NAir at F9 armor and F10 hitbox considering jumpsquat. This is the same as his F10 shieldgrab. Thus many moves are safe on K. Rool’s shield. The 11 frame shielddrop penalty and 4 frame grab lockout really hurt this guy, seriously. Most of the time K. Rool has to respect aerials on his shield and wait for another button to be pressed, which isn’t inherently bad but just a bit nasty if the opponent can exploit it. Generally, with K. Rool you Shield only to protect yourself and not to create an opening/punish an attack.

K. Rool’s recovery, while well-guarded and backed by his near-immunity to stage spikes, is very exploitable. Even with his pool of mixups off-stage, once used, K. Rool is vulnerable for quite a while. He can be spiked through the propeller, or hit from the side. If the opponent knows to attack him from the front, he is forced into a high recovery that can easily be punished and possibly even lead to a stock. He is also extremely vulnerable to projectiles, with attacks like Villager’s FSmash Bowling Ball being a notorious one to get past.