Duon (SSBB)

Duon in Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Universe	Super Smash Bros.
A boss in	Brawl
Availability	Hacking
Tier	Banned

Duon (デュオン, Duon), is an unplayable character in Brawl and only playable in Boss Battles via hacking. It's unvoiced, letting out mostly mechanical sound effects.

When playable, Duon's power level scales with the difficulty setting chosen for Boss Battles. Uniquely, contrary to its appearance as a boss, it does not need to switch faces to use either side's attacks, and can fire projectiles with relative impunity while covering itself with strong close-ranged attacks. This makes Duon a very fierce opponent and among the strongest of the Brawl bosses.

Attributes

Without the restriction of side switching, Duon becomes an extremely imposing threat, capable of launching as many projectiles as desired. Additionally, because Duon's body is considered to be a solid object, characters can launch into and tech on it, which can even create combo opportunities, and Rotating Attack can hit players stuck on top of it for massive damage. Duon's attacks are shockingly fast on Brawl boss standards as well, giving Duon some minor reactive ability with moves like Bomb Drop. Arguably one of Duon's most standout traits, however, is Triple Beam, which cannot be reflected or absorbed. Because of how well it tracks, Triple Beam allows Duon to edgeguard opponents, something few Brawl bosses on platform stages are capable of. When used alongside Bomb Drop, Duon can create a sort of obstacle course that is very difficult to stop, making it vaguely capable of camping. These can be complemented with its head bash attack () to catch opponents as they fly into Duon. Duon is also capable of ledgetrapping opponents with ease using Rotating Attack, invalidating tether recovery with ease.

Duon does have some flaws, though. Its Homing Missiles can come back to hurt it and deal massive damage regardless of difficulty, almost KOing it on lower difficulties and dealing around a third on Intense. While strong, when using this move, Duon can't dash or jump without extreme precision; otherwise, it will crash into them. The lack of Triple Slash also means Duon doesn't have a direct way to attack the middle of the stage outside of its dashing attack (/), which can be problematic against agile opponents like Meta Knight or Fox. Additionally, Duon suffers from the trademark issues of all Brawl bosses: It is very easy for damage to be racked up by moves like Charizard's Rock Smash and repeated Vegetable z-drops from Peach, and with all its attacks being decently slow and reactable, it's capable of taking extreme punishment for misinputting. Thus, while arguably the strongest boss character when playable, Duon is kept firmly in check by its nature.

Health values

HP Values
Round	1-3	4-6	7-9	1-3	4-6	7-9	1-3	4-6	7-9	1-3	4-6	7-9	1-3	4-6	7-9
Boss Battles	149.8	157.4	164.6	161	170	180	173	183.5	196.5	185	197	213	217	233	257
Multiplied by 0.6× when a second player is present.

Damage taken	×1.0	×0.7	×1.0	×1.0	×1.0	×0.7	×1.3	×1.0	×1.0	×1.0	×0.75

Moveset

Like all bosses, Duon's moves are inputted using a set of commands with a GameCube controller, chiefly with the D-Pad. Move names are taken from the Japanese strategy guide for Brawl. Damage varies by difficulty, the following being taken from the game's files. Unlike its boss appearance, Duon cannot use its side switch or Triple Attack; however, it will side switch automatically when using a move.

Image	Move	Base Damage	Input	Description
				Duon bashes its head forward with high speed and immense knockback. Knockback can be both vertical and angled, depending on how it lands; if the player stands on Duon, the hit always lands. In general this move is swift and unpredictable, but suffers from a very short range. If a player is launched towards Duon by a projectile, this move can be used as a finisher for a quick KO.
		16%, 20%, 6%	+	Duon jumps up high and crashes down, then grinds in place (prevents close-range attacks). The jump goes farther across the field on higher difficulties, which, ironically, makes it easier to avoid. If the player is hit by Duon in the fall, they will sustain enormous vertical knockback, with damage reaching 62% on Intense. If the player stands on Duon during this move, they will be inflicted vertical knockback with high KO power just before the jump lands. Being hit while midair also increases the KO potential. After landing, Duon will move back for a moment, leaving it open for attacks.
	Rotating Attack (回転攻撃)	8% (Multiple hits)	+	Duon spins around with a very strong vacuum effect (although the range is quite short). It is extremely difficult for the player to escape once they have been trapped by the spin. If all hits chain on Intense, the move will deal up to 84% damage in around three seconds. It also pushes down the character if they are below the ledge, effectively negating many non-tether-based recoveries and gimping many fighters. Also, if the player stands on Duon, they will always be sucked in by the attack, suffering the maximum damage and knockback.
	Slash (斬りつけ)	18%, 14%, 8%	+/	Duon readies its arms shaping a cross, then slashes making a large shockwave in front of it. The hit itself deals strong knockback. Damage is also very high, however the slash itself has a very low range. The red shockwave inflicts high knockback, but is not as strong. Because this is Boss Battles, it won't KO until noticeably later, but it is still powerful, has a large hitbox, and makes for an effective way to knock the opponent back to allow for further projectile use.
	Bomb Drop (爆弾投下)	14%		Duon launches several mines in the air. These can be detonated (but won't hurt Duon) with vertical-based attacks, such as Pikachu's Thunder or a chucked item. Because it's fast and has incredibly low end-lag for a boss attack, it is relatively riskless and can be accompanied by either other projectiles or a dash to the other end of the stage. The mines are quite difficult to avoid, despite being slow, but they are also one of Duon's weakest attacks, KOing at relatively high percentages (over 100% on the lower difficulties and around 75% on Intense). Knockback is perfectly vertical, while damage reaches around 30% for each hit on Intense. The higher the difficulty, the more mines are launched. Once launched, it's plausible to follow up with Triple Beam to catch the opponent near the ceiling.
	Homing Missile (誘導ミサイル)	14%, 10%	+	Duon moves its non-weapon arm back to shoot four homing missiles. The missiles can be directed to hit Duon itself, inflicting very high damage; additionally, under player control, it is possible for Duon to accidentally fly into them, resulting in what could be a SD. On lower difficulties, all four missiles redirected to Duon can nearly KO the boss, and on higher difficulties, can take around 1/3 of its health. The missiles can be detonated with vertical-ranged attacks or thrown items. They can damage Duon even if the explosion hits it. It is always followed by a "shared attack". The missiles are very powerful, inflicting up to 30% with enough power to KO under 50% on Intense difficulty. The higher the difficulty, the more accurate the homing is.
	Triple Beam (三連ビーム)	18%	+	Duon's head glows, and then shoots three strong blue bolts that will pierce though everything (including the field and Duon, but it doesn't hurt itself) except Pit's Mirror Shield. At higher difficulties, they will break shields, allowing for an easy KO. They cannot be reflected or absorbed. Touching the blue sphere on Duon's head deals very high vertical knockback. The beams themselves are extremely powerful, being able to KO around 30% and inflicting high damages (up to 35%). The beam's high speed and piercing ability, as well as the unpredictable beginning, make this attack extremely dangerous. Additionally, Duon can utilise this to [[edgeguard, making recovery with characters like Ike very difficult.
	Rapid Fire (連射)		+	Duon shoots pink lasers with a vertical-spread coverage. Can be reflected or absorbed. Duon will aim higher and a little back if a character is above or behind it. Each laser projectile (around twelve shots in a row) deals up to 30% and KOs around 60%.
			+	Duon shoots pink lasers at the ground in the front. These lasers can be reflected or absorbed. Each laser projectile (around twelve shots in a row) deals up to 30% and KOs around 60%. This attack can be quite difficult to avoid on the higher difficulties.
			/	Duon charges forward quickly. The wheels deal damage while tilted after dash (max 18%). Knockback can be either vertical or angled, depending on how Duon lands and on what part of his body hits the player. It is possible to be hit only by side by touching Duon's head, which deals less damage (max 20%) and decent knockback, KOing at around 70%.
	Self-Destruct		N/A	KOs Duon.

Codes

Like all Brawl bosses, Duon can be accessed using a Gecko code that enables debug mode controls for Player 3 in Boss Battles. It is encountered randomly without additional external modifications, meaning other bosses need to be defeated or forced to self-destruct with their own codes to reach Duon's stage. The following codes are for the NTSC-U version of Brawl and both codes must be on.

Enable Boss Control
4A000000	810F1F3C
D2000000	00000002
901F058C	5400843E
90020070	00000000
C277F780	00000010
7CDFF050	2C06414C
4082006C	2C1C0002
40810064	39820074
809E0038	A0EC0000
7C043800	41810050
A0EC0002	7C1C3800
41820044	3CC0804E
A0C6E4C0	A8EC0004
2C070000	41820030
A8EC0004	7C063800
4082000C	A38C0006
4800001C	2C07FFFF
4082000C	AB8C0006
4800000C	398C0004
4BFFFFD8	939E0038
60000000	00000000
4A000000	805A9320
14000078	00000000
E0000000	80008000

Duon control for Player 3
4A000000	805A9320
30000070	00005C06
16000074	0000003C
00090001	10800001
0180000B	0181000F
0182000F	02800010
02810011	02820012
02840013	02880014
00A00015	00C00015
01840016	01880017
FFFFFFFF	00000000
E0000000	80008000

In competitive play

Because Duon is only playable through hacking, it's banned by default in all competitive Brawl tournaments. While some boss characters have arguments to be legalised, Brawl's bosses have unique challenges that make them particularly unlikely cases. They do not conform to the usual ruleset, are exclusive to Boss Battles and thus their specific stage, are subject to Boss Battles's random boss selection without further modifications, and have varying difficulty levels that would require rulings to decide on them properly. This boils down to a very clunky experience that would likely end up delaying tournaments due to the length of time it takes for them to be set up. Furthermore, Samus's Grapple Beam can reset the controls of Brawl bosses, which could cause further ruling issues. Ergo, Duon has seen little to no competitive experimentation outside of casual matches.

In The Subspace Emissary

Duon appears as a boss at Battleship Halberd Bridge in The Subspace Emissary, and is shown to be a being created through numerous Shadow Bugs extracted from Mr. Game & Watch merging together. It's the sixth boss of the game and fought by Snake, Fox, Falco, Zelda/Sheik, and Peach. It later reappears in The Great Maze with reduced health.

Gallery

• 

  Official Brawl artwork

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  Duon trophy

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  Triple Attack part 1

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  Triple Attack part 2

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  Triple Attack part 3