Dan has lots of tools to stop the Flying Barcelona Attack and Sky High Claw. The simplest is one that any character can do, use a Focus Attack to absorb them. If he lands in front of you after that, release the attack to crumple him and then dash-cancel to start a combo (for Dan, it should be c.HP xx Heavy Danku for good damage and stun). If he lands behind you, dash-cancel away from him so that you’re safe. Watch out for him to glow, as the EX Sky High Claw breaks armour, and the EX Flying Barcelona Attack can hit twice at a certain angle (which will also get through your armour).
If he wises up to your Focus sheDanigans, he’ll start flying in close on the FBA to try to grab you for an Izuna Drop. You can start switching up your tactics at this point. You can anti-air the wall dives pretty easily, usually. A Koryuken will stop either one when properly timed, or you can go the even better route, by jumping up after him and doing the Knee of Justice. The Knee eats up everything Vega does in the air except (sometimes) his normal air throw. While jumping backwards, I’ve even had the Knee beat Vega’s Ultra cleanly. Make good use of it.
Once you remove the wall dives from his arsenal, Vega is basically c.MP, backflips, and not much else. At that point, your Saikyo skills should be able to handle him!
Well Dan can actually beat ex sbk with a slightly late jumping short that hits just behind her head, but that doesn’t make the matchup even. Chun is one of the characters who can do crouching short on Dan with impunity; her shorts are faster than all of Dan’s normals, they cause Chun to duck under short dan kick, they lead to big damage and mixups, they beat tick attempts (because Dan has literally no normals that are plus frame on block), and they beat everything Dan has up close except dragon punch. In other words, all you have to make her stop doing crouching short is random dragon punch (preferably dp xx fadc, but you don’t always have meter). The reason I don’t have this matchup as even worse is that Dan can play ok at like max footsie range, he has pretty good defense so Chun’s mixups aren’t as dangerous as they could be, and he can jump in on her with jumping short. Maybe I’ll end up listing this as worse.
This matchup is so bad because of Ryu’s footsies in my opinion, which are way way better than Dan’s. They’re faster, hit confirmable, safer, have more range, and lead to more damaging things. That makes it really hard to approach him on the ground, but you have to be wary about jumping in, even with air short dan kick, because Ryu has so many good and potentially damaging antiairs.
I’m not sure about the caliber of Gief player you’re playing against if you’re saying that being able to deal with lariat means it’s not a bad match (sorry, don’t mean that to sound offensive). Lots of characters have options that can deal with lariat, but that doesn’t stop Zangief from beating them. If Gief just walks forward and presses normal attacks, what do you do? Try to hit him with normal attacks? My friend and I tested this once, and Gief’s standing strong beats almost all of Dan’s ground attacks and puts him out of range for the rest; playing footsies with Gief is really hard for Dan. Don’t do random ex dan kicks like you’d try in lots of footsie battles, they always result in you getting command grabbed. Are you gonna try a short dan kick? Dan kick’s startup loses to everything, and if you whiffed your kick, you’re gonna get spun. Are you gonna do a random dragon punch and hope you hit his hand? Not a good idea, both because that only trades and because if you whiff, he has all day to do 720. What you’re gonna do instead is back up, and that’s gonna lead to you getting cornered and having to try to guess your way out.
Playing meaty games on Gief is dangerous too, because while a late ranged short dan kick beats wakeup lariat, it loses to ex hand, and if you instead time it to recover in time to block ex hand (since ex hand has a huge 13 startup frames), it’ll lose to or trade with lariat, and if you just stand there instead, you risk getting grabbed or pushed back with normals. You can cross him up with jumping forward, but only at a spot where if it hits you can combo him with close standing strong, and if it doesn’t and if he was mashing 360 and you tried close strong, you’re gonna get spun (because you have to hit him high enough that he can recover from the jumping forward’s blockstun before your close strong can touch him).
This is why I think Dan is for sure a 3-7 matchup with Zangief. Dan’s game seems to fit in perfect to where Zangief players want them to be. Judging by the videos in the Zangief thread, Zangiefs are more than content on playing poke games and Dan just doesn’t seem to win in a poke game. I find I am trying to HP Gadoken and EX gadoken to try to outpoke Zangief and it never seems like the match is in my favor. Trying to jump in on Zangief seems to either get me grabbed or lariated just right so I trade with Gief. Trying to be offensive at all seems risky of getting grabbed. Using the Dan Kicks never seem to be put me in a favorable situation. I really don’t like the situation of being next to Zangief on even frames having to guess if he is going for the SPD or a random lariat or if he will just block and see if I go for the DP. After blocked moves I feel more obligated to dash backwards against Zangief.
I have one question about Gief. If Zangief does his Ultra and Dan’s leg is sticking out from going for a low kick, Gief can grab the hitbox of the leg, right? I seem far enough away for the grab to whiff me normally(if I was not attacking), so I figured that the leg counts as a part of the hitbox but I wanted clarification.
I think this is worse than that, for almost the same reasoning you gave with Chun. When Boxer is in range, there’s little Dan can do about c.lp spam other than random koryus. It beats out everything else Dan can try. Unlike Chun, when Dan can actually score combos on Boxer, his danku won’t whiff. But Boxer does more damage overall than Chun.
I really need to learn how to play against Sim cuz I still don’t see this as even. I have such a hard time dealing with Sim as Dan, trying to close distance without eating random distance pokes.
Going on theory alone, I think Honda might be just as bad if not worse than Blanka. Versus Dan, Honda has several of the same strengths that Blanka has (safe specials, long-range normals), but unlike Blanka, he has an invincible-on-startup special (Butt Stomp) that doesn’t require meter, to go along with the two that do, both just as powerful as ex up ball.
Do you play any really strong Hondas?
I agree. But, to me, what makes the Gief matchup even worse is if he has health lead and decides to turtle. You can put barely apply any type pressure. Any danku to approach will get you SPD’d. Air attacks of any kind will get crouching lariat’d. You have to try to walk forward or gadou and hope for the best.
Sim isn’t that hard. You just have to stay on his ass the whole match. But yea, once they teleport back it’s a struggle to get back in again. I find spamming lp dp’s sort of stops them or makes them more cautious of using s.hp pokes so much.
As for Honda just don’t walk back so much if at all. He’s just really powerful. I always feel like I outplay Honda but still end up with a lose. =/
Dan’s standing LK Danku will beat Honda’s normal Sumo Smash when the two clash (such as in a wakeup reversal situation, as Honda gets up). Honda needs to do an EX Sumo Smash to get out of a Knee of Justice lockdown attempt for its extended invincibility. With the LK Danku beating the normal Sumo Headbutt/Sumo Smash, but not beating Blanka balls, I’d say Blanka remains a worse matchup.
I can do okay against Honda as long as I’m wary of him when he has meter. If I can trick him into wasting his meter, it gives me all the opportunity in the world to get him down and keep him down. It’s a lot harder to keep a good Blanka down, comparatively.
I can confirm this. I few days ago I realized how useful dans lk danku is on honda on wake up. Also get a little distance if you can about a character width away, that way if he blocks on wake up its rather easy to avoid a command throw or whatever counter of choice he tries to use for blocking your lk danku. ( played a honda the other day I kept on lockdown with the lk dan knee, he sent me a message about how shitty my technique is and that im a scrub…even though I won) I don’t care if it looks good or isn’t complicated it works and that’s all that matters. Basically I would dan knee him repeatedly on wake up then when he caught on and just started blocking on wake up I just threw him on wake up, then just started mixing up dan knees and throws.
The spacing I find is key. Its also the key to using the air lk dan knee repeatedly on zangief too, if you hit too deep, he can command throw you, try to space your self so you hit the very end of his hit box, you land out of range of his command throw, so I will do that dash back then dankyu his command throw. By no means is this a strategy for the whole match for gief, once he decides to start green handing his way to you its near impossible to land the knee correctly, so you have to rely on counter hits and avoiding being in close quarters with that bastard for more than a couple seconds. But thats a gief match, chip away damage where you can while avoiding him hoping for the win because if he catches you once, the ridiculous amount of work it took just to get his health where it is has just been nullified with one throw.
I havent really found any particular technique that is always useful vs boxer either. I just try to be as random as possible vs boxer. I spam gado’s alot, if you can preempt his punch specials with a dan kick it works too. The only good theing about most boxer players is once they get an ultra/super, they do everything in their power to land that damn buffalo headbutt > Ultra/super, so its really easy to predict when they will do it. Bait it out, and you can punish them repeatedly for the rest of the match because most boxers are single minded in getting that super/ultra off. If boxer doesn’t quick stand, go for the cross up, his head butt misses every time. Empty jump ins then throw are good too, as he will generally wait for you to attack first so he can bust out his ridiculous jab priority in the middle of the blockstring.
Aside from the headbutt, boxer is incredibly difficult to punish. Dan also doesnt have many moves that have priority over boxers without timing them really well.
I find a good technique which works for me against the boxer is to use the focus attack to absorb his long punches. I know the boxer has a lot of focus break attacks so you can’t use it often unless you know his animations/sounds for different punches. If you find him using a move to break your focus then I would suggest DC back then use your sweep because dan has a large surface area for sweeps.
And any time you have absorbed a punch with a focus the boxer will more often then not try spam jabbing to get his hit. So I find an EX uppercut works well to do additional damage if your focus does not stun him.
I find the boxer one of the easier opponets with Dan, but the character I find ALMOST impossible is Blanka! Does anyone have a stratigie against him??? Please help
The Focus attack. I have come to the conclusion this is dans greatest weapon in the damn game. The past few days, I have been honing my FA skill and using it more frequently. Its paying dividends, I am winning more matches. Today I was steam rolling fools in G2 I went 15-4 today 2 tourney wins, the saikyo was with me.
CHAR JUNE 25
Abel 5-5
Akuma 4-6
Blanka 2.5-7.5
Boxer 4.5-5.5
Cammy 5-5
Chun 4-6
Claw 5.5-4.5
Dhalsim 5-5
Dictator 3.5-6.5
Fei 5-5
Fuerte 5-5
Gen 4.5-5.5
Gouken 5-5
Guile 4.5-5.5
Honda 3.5-6.5
Ken 4-6
Rose 5.5-4.5
Rufus 4.5-5.5
Ryu 3.5-6.5
Sagat 3-7
Sakura 4.5-5.5
Seth 3-7
Viper 5-5
Zangief 3-7
Thanks for the Honda advice guys, it’s been useful. Also about Boxer, I think it’s almost even mostly because Boxer has a really weak wakeup and Dan has strong meaty games, but also because I think Dan does alright in playing a zoning game with things like crouching mk buffered into ex dan kick and standing mk. I got a little more used to dealing with Fuerte, and I think I might eventually list that as a slight win for Dan. I still think Blanka is a really really bad matchup.
Yes Dan’s FA is really good for punishing predictable patterns and applying some pressure. Also if it hasn’t been stated about his lk danku, i found it can prevent some wake ups such as lariat, and shoryuken. The thing is it needs proper spacing and timing. I feel that it’s true because I once fought a ken that I was able to corner that kept lp dp reversals on wake up, with a good stable connection. Not sure of the list of wake ups it can prevent but I think people should try this out. Sorry if it’s already mentioned.
Does anyone have tips against zoners? With Sagat they get me everytime by spamming projectiles then HK if I get close. Ryu they spam hadoukens then lp dp. Dhalsim seems to be a guessing game. Seems the only safe way to punish is an EX move like EX Danku. Any help appreciated.
best way to deal with him is to bait him into attacking you. When hes zoning you don’t do what he wants you to, which is jump in on him. Forward jump his FB’s then back dash. Ryu’s fbs are much easier to avoid repeatedly than sagat. check your distances, you want to get into a position where you can jump his next fb and he cant immidiately counter.
Most Ryu’s either want to A. get you to jump in for the shoryu or B. jump in within sweep range. Option B is usually what I try to do because you can block, and better yet if they are predictable it opens up counter hits and reversals for you. If you annoy them with the jumping /back dashing to kill your zoning game, they will often times jump in on you right after you jump an fb. I prefer to FA as opposed to dping jump ins, takes some practice to nail down the release timing, but acouple jumpin FA > c.HP>HK danku will dizzy his ass.
Sagat-
pretty much the same as Ryu but, if you want to jump in on him you can although still not advisable, work on your timing and spacing and a well placed air lk danku, will kill that s.hk every time.
Dhalsim- pain in the ass, many dhalsim players are different but they almost always follow a pattern. You litterally have to play it safe the entire time, alot like a full screen attack then teleport in on you, best to neutral jump the teleport and attack with whatever works. Dont get flustered and reckless, dhalsim’s game thrives on that. When he jumps up dash like a mad man to get under him, they want to jump toward them. just play defensively and eventually you will be able to get your mitts on him. look for focus attack opportunities a combo of any form is devestating for dhalsim.