Oh my god! Ultradavid giving dan tips and helping the saikyo art improve! Good info sir, I didn’t know that it beats lariats and stuff!
It can crossup in the corner too as far as I know, I have seen a guy do it in a match but it was online, I didnt ask him or test. By the way I also find it useful to go over ryu’s hadoken. And doing hk dankus late in the jump helps floating above other projectiles and I think it beats guile’s cr.hp too.
Is there any respectable follow up to the a.lk danku? or do u just jump up and go for another?
If it connects air to air and you’re pushing the opponent into the corner, you can tack on an EX Koryuken or EX Gadoken for 60 extra damage, or a Haoh Gadoken for sizably more. Those are the only followups to it, as it launches the opponent a long ways away, and Dan’s juggle options are limited.
Whatever the case, when you hit an air LK Danku on the opponent, take advantage of the distance it launches them to either get yourself out of a corner or back them into a corner. Spacing and positioning are very important!
If it’s blocked, you’re put at a frame advantage, neutral, or safe at a disadvantage unless you’ve tagged a tall character high up (At which point, it’s punishable with fast normals, throws and command grabs). If you can wrap your head around that you’ll find your options to be pretty numerous. Neutral jumping in front of your opponent’s face is a bad idea, as most characters have an easy anti-air option for that.
If you landed the aerial danku low to the ground or landed it meaty, you should have a frame advantage. This means you can stick out a good normal like s.MP or cr.MK and not have to worry about throw-mashing, OS-tech or any non-invincible reversal. Not a good idea if your opponent is mashing Shoryuken or EX Messiah, so watch out.
In this situation, or if you’re at roughly neutral frames, you can just make a throw attempt. You can also backdash in an attempt to bait something. Against Zangief or Hawk players that are on point, they may be jonesing to throw out a 360 or 720 grab. In a situation like that, a neutral jump into a nj.HP into a big damage combo would be a good idea, but that’s a dangerous game to be playing with a grappler.
Going right into Koryuken FADC is also an option. It stuffs EVERYTHING the opponent will try, provided they press a button or don’t mash out a very invincible reversal like EX Shoryuken. If they block, you’ve blown two very valuable EX meters, so watch out.
Generally speaking, all your options are the same options you have after regular grounded LK.Danku, it’s just that it’s harder to land aerial LK.Danku if your spacing isn’t completely on point. Recognizing frame advantage, what kind of defensive action your opponent favours, their habits, and their breaking point (When will they crack and mash desperation Ultras or unsafe reversals?), will propel your Yomi and fundamentals to a level that will impress/terrify/mesmerize your friends, and make opponents rage.
PKSkyler’s Awesome list of Personal Dan Hibiki Match ups
Posting this to generate some discussion and after I saw Air’s matchups on the front page. Again, this is for me personally, going off who ive played/what ive observed and the experiences ive had/seen.
First Number is opposing character
Honda 7.5/2.5
M.Bison 5/5
Guile 6.5/3.5
Chun Li 6.5/3.5
Balrog 5.5/4.5
Cammy 6/4
Ryu 5.5/4.5
Abel 4.5/5.5
Dhalsim 6.5/3.5
Rufus 5.5/4.5
Sagat 6.5/3.5
Seth 6/4
Akuma 5/5
Fei 5.5/4.5
Ken 5/5
Rose 7/3
Blanka 7/3
Zangief 7.5/2.5
Dee Jay 6/4
Adon 5/5
Ibuki 6.5/3.5
Vega 4.5/5.5
Cody 5.5/4.5
Viper 6.5/3.5
Fuerte 5/5
Dudley 5.5/4.5
Gouken 5/5
Juri 6/4
Hawk 7/3
Sakura 4/6
Guy 6/4
Gen 5/5
Dan Saikyo/Ryuu Ougi
Hakan 4/6
Makoto 4/6
as you can see, it closely mirrors the current list, but I made some claims that im sure many other players would probably say make no sense. I can back up anything controversial, tho. Lets talk bout it ;D
Slight advantage over abel, i would like to hear the thought behind that
Dan dan seiya! Dan dan seiya!
kidding (sort of) but dankuu really wrecks things in this match. It can be a lil hard to get in on abel, but not ridculously like other matches. Once were in, knee traps mess the guy up. He cant do much to get out. I feel its just a huge guessing game after the dankuu. Throw rolls, neutral jump tornado throw, dankuu backdashes/blocking, koryu everything else. Both ultras are useless on wake up against us, as dan can hk dankuu over souless and armor break breathless. The way for abel to win the match is to keep dan out with footsies, knock dan down and start his mix ups, and if he gets knocked down get out asap without taking too much damage. Oh, and dankuu should beat wheel kick, but it takes certain strengths at certain distances.
I just crouch DP Wheel Kicks on reaction. Have to block the light ones, but that’s it. In this match, one knockdown can get you the life lead thanks to LK.Danku being so godlike. Once you do, you can actually play lame in this matchup because Abel’s approach options are so much worse than yours. 
The only thing I really worry about is LK.Wheelie Kick, Dash Forward > f.MK > Dash Forward and EX CoD in footsies, but that still only puts him in a mixup situation if you block it, and you can space to prevent it. I’m a big fan of Haoh Gadouken in this matchup, simply due to the number of opportunities you get to use Koryuken FADC.
Another note. You need to time your meaty Dankus carefully. HK and MK can lose to Falling Sky in certain situations, and I’m beginning to suspect that LK.Danku can be punished on reaction, in this case with Ultra I, EX TT or avoided with Marseilles Roll, if done too late. Timed super meaty, the thing essentially has a maximum of 27 frames before it connects. Thanks to that thread on reaction, I know I react to things in 17 frames, and even coupled with input lag and physically inputting motions, that’s still a window for reaction.
Ahh true I do the same. Im actually sort of a bad dan player in a sense I like to finish the game rushing down and not zoning, even though its sometimes a smarter decision to do so.
Cant you block on hit of CoD -> mash krk for punish? Or am i trippin. I used to use Haoh Gadouken for every match up ever, but recently ive switched to U1 as its a bigger punish and im bad at managing meter: when i fadc my koryu successfully i ussually dont have ultra and when I do have my ultra i ussually have no meter. Too much EX dankuu for me i think X_x
Ive had many instances of mk and hk losing to falling sky vs good abels actually so thats when my options on wake up start to turn more to c.mk or st.mp instead. Of course, then youve gotta watch for ex TT…
I dont think ive ever been been punished for a meaty dankuu like that, and ive played good abels like juicebox. To try and avoid that, id reccomend timing the changing the timings of the knees on their wake up accordingly, maybe so that it looks like it will hit but it wont/ making it cross over instead, so when they wake up they actually wont be getting hit by knee and you SHOULD be safe…and blocking/using a throw if expecting the roll or a koryu if expecting a counter attack…
Done late enough, LK.Danku will whiff due to EX TT’s invuln frames, and you’ll land as the actives start up. I don’t think I’ve ever met an Abel who knows this or the matchup well enough to apply it, though.
EX CoD leaves Abel at -3, not enough for a punish. It blows through Dan’s slow-arse pokes, even at range, and will give him the momentum with a knockdown.
I like to space with random Gadoukens to keep meter gain, unless Abel has no meter, at which point you want to press the offense, since meterless Abel is super-free if you can get the knockdown. The same goes for characters like Chun and Rufus. Make them eat Danku when they’re vulnerable. A lot of players don’t know how to deal with the unexpected Dan pressure when they don’t have a good reversal, so press the advantage before they smarten up. Good players will adapt after a few mixups, so be careful.
Wow, I had no idea. That sucks. Never happened to me but ill have to keep it in mind in case I get TT’d and im like “Wtf i was doin a dankuu o_o”
You have to remember that gadouken is still a projectile, and abel is a character whos great at getting past those. knee is a good meter option too.
The last strategy works wonders in the bison match up too if you can get the knockdown early. They take some hits and mixups till they get an ex, and you can almost gurantee after taking that pressure theyll try to ex psycho out. bait n punish, baby ;D
Its potent against lots of characters, actually. Rose blanka cody vega ibuki makoto hakan guy n juri ,just to name some off my head, all need EX to give their reversal enough oomph to stop dat dankuu, and sometimes not even then. (well cept rose can use ultra.)
I’ve kind of been up all night. Playing with friends. Playing online. Whatever. I’ve come to gift you with my knowledge of the cr.LK Option Select on Dhalsim. We really should start recording option-selects. Here’s the basics for all you Saikyo Disciples who are hurting in the matchup.
Once you have Dhalsim in the corner use meaty cr.LK xx EX Danku on his wakeup.
He blocks high, tries to throw, jumps, reversal whatever: He eats combo.
He teleports. cr.LK whiffs and doesn’t fire. Punish or throw him back into the corner.
He panics and uses Reversal Ultra I. You connect with cr.LK, but instead of eating Catastrophe, you cancel into EX Koryuken during the Ultra freeze.
He uses Super, well. Shit.
This also works pretty good mid-screen. If you EX Danku after a whiffed cr.LK in the case of a backwards teleport, I think you can throw Dhalsim when the EX Danku whiffs.
Go and make all the Dhalsim’s free. Those that block you may still have trouble with, but this should let you mop the floor with the regular goodfornothins.
Whats up PKSkyler, this is the other dan from the tournament on saturday. I seriously think I would’ve gotten a much better place in the tourney if it werent for my random koryuken-instead-of-ultra fail against tae -__- . Anyways for the time that ive been using Dan I have a couple of comments in your match up chart.
Regarding Zangief as a 2.5 sort of puzzles me. Maybe ive been playing all the wrong zangiefs but I know some of the zangief’s I play in real life arent scrubs and for me the match up is 5/5 IF not slightly on Dans advantage. I havent read any match up threads on characters yet but the strategy that I use against him is to always get him to the corner and neutral jump lk dankuu him until he burns meter to get himself out of the corner with an ex green hand. When zangief is in the corner, if he lariats, n.jump lk dankuu will ALWAYS beat it, if he tries to jump he’ll get beat, any other attack except ultra 2 cant beat it(that ive tested). Ex dankuu is the only reason why you build meter against zangief, in mid-screen zone try not to get your standing medium kick SPD’d but do them at a distance where he whiffs an SPD and punish with an ex dankuu, he will do ex green hands and normal green hands to get in and ex dankuu on reaction.
Its true that the abel match up is a good one, but I will add that I did play an abel that was aware of the match up and the abuse of dankuu so he used him rather differently yet efficient against me. He never really tried to roll or go on the offensive, he stood there and medium punched my dankuu’s and other moves, HE footsied me! Low forward was the one getting in sometimes but he hit me a lot more, I would’ve liked to play him again.
I hate blanka but I dont think its so bad, I think dan has enough tools to punish whatever he does. Blanka balls can be punished with koryuken on reaction or ultra 1 on block. Slide again with koryuken on block or ultra 1 on block. If hes walking forward then he has no charge obviously, so mk or hk dankuu his attempt for grab, or he’ll do a slide which wont hit, you got nothing to lose.
Yeah honda is hard. Bait out headbutts by jumping backward, and when that happens do a lk dankuu near the end and it will always beat headbutt. I have to admit I jump somewhat like an idiot against honda with SOME success. You cant really expect to beat him air to air if he neutral jumps so just let him come at you.
I hate to be the naysayer of the bad match ups but dan isnt that bad against most of the cast, you just kind of know where to hit and exagerate on those areas. Like again with chun, to me it’s a 5/5, why? because you’ll lose if you rush her down, you have to get her into the corner because of HER mistakes, she has to come at you, and a jump in is always a koryuken, absorb all her fireballs because THEY WILL lame it out, and when you have ultra go right through one. Chun in the corner against Dan is GARBAGE. If you know how to time neutral jump lk dankuu’s she has no use for ex sbk’s, the animation will end and she will get stuffed, then do what dan does best in the corner as long as she keeps wasting her meter.
imo the ones that I feel are bad is guy, sagat, hawk, and sim. Other than that I think they are even, then again I do need more than 2 months with dan lol.
All Zangief has to do is block nj.LK.Danku and he gets a mixup scenario grossly in his favour. Air LK.Danku also loses clean to Gief’s cr.MP, along with a number of other normals. Air LK.Danku can be blocked and punished if positioned wrong. No competent Gief Lariats for the hell of it either. Dan doesn’t even have access to HK or MK Danku in this matchup.
The Zangiefs you’ve been playing are scrubs. Sorry. :\
Yep.
I guess I havent met a zangief that knows what to do like the abel I faced. I never mentioned HK and MK dankuu(only on blanka) because I know its free damage for zangief, all I said was corner lk dankuu and ex dankuu mid screen. Hey at least we know it works on scrubs ;D … u_u not being sarcastic or anything but I think even 4k+ PP zangiefs are scrubs then.
Also, what ultra do you guys use on boxer? I go for 2 because it even stuffs boxers ultra on point. I just hated getting my ultra absorbed by a measly ex dash punch.
thnx much for the post on the cr.lk option select, krakatoa. speaking oft them, do we have an “anti rufus” option select? I saw one using dhalsim with the generic crouch tech os but using cr mp instead of just lp and lk.
hey whats up man, ggs at the tourney. I did bad I only won one game 
but tbh I dont have very much experience on ps3 or against fei long and I had to fight my friends shmity who plays me all the time and plays honda.
gief is godly. first we cant really get in on him, his pokes are better than ours. 2nd, even when we do its hard to tring together lk dankuus without getting interrupted. finally on wake up lk air dankuu will only work a couple times. i prefer going with xiahou mao’s ballsy method of throwing gief since it beats all options cep neutral jump and spd, and then you get him to try and tech them or spd more, so you can set up offense easier.
blanka is really hard because of ex up ball. it beats everything you do after dankuu and on wake up. luckily it can be punished with u1 on block but until you get it it cant and blanka has other methods of waking up too. Also, blankas got better pokes than us. you cun punish horizantal blanka ball from mid screen with u1? I didnt know that.
yeah abel is hard when he pokes because you cant dankuu for free as much, however your pokes actually might be better than his and also if you got him pressing buttons he will be more prone to dankuu strings.
headbutt can easily nail gadouken out of start up which sucks. also, its hard to make honda come to you, and again hes impossible to mix up like blanka, ex headbutt beats everything but is unpunishable.
again, you are making it sound like chun will actually approach you…she wont. thats why the match is hard af. her kikoens are almost sonic boom tier (aka hard to u1 through them) she has an answer to all our anti airs (even aerial knee) and her pokes just rape us. however, yeah on wake up and in the corner its really hard for you and its a lot better for us (you dont need to do neutral jump lk dankuu, you can beat ex sbk on wake up with normal lk dankuu btw)
hawk is like gief but gief is probably worse. guy?? hes not that bad once you learn his tricks. Dhalsim is kinda like chun tbh, and sagats an ass but he always has been, hes easier in ssfiv than vanilla.
just my thoughts.
Good Dhalsim’s are a pain. If you’re jumping fireballs on reaction, Dan functions much like Zangief at a certain range, except with less comeback factor on a miracle Lariat. So long as you don’t get tagged with any fireball/teleport traps, you can keep Sim in the corner. Once you do, you can’t afford to let him out. The EX Danku OS has a drawback, in that the opponent has a 1-frame window to throw you afterwards provided Throw doesn’t benefit from any kind of reversal window or input buffer. It doesn’t, from what I can tell.
Save LK.Danku for when you’re in range to tag Dhalsim’s body, don’t try to smack a limb with it, it won’t end well. The landing recovery on it is too gaping to just throw out, and it’s only good for fucking with Dhalsim’s anti-air normal timing, which means they need to be expecting regular jump-ins from time to time, so you can’t just keep defaulting to the Knee. His b.HK and more consistently, his b.MP, will beat it all clean if he times it right, and those things have a whopping amount of active frames (5 or 6).
When jumping in from a distance, I like to throw out j.LK when it’s not imperative to empty jump (Say you’re about to land close to a fireball). j.LK will stuff Dhalsim’s normals in certain situations, so it may reward you with some extra distance gained where you’d normally get a Yoga Boot to the Face.
If you find yourself in a situation where you’ve managed to pull an “Ume-Jump In” over his fireball or slower normals, don’t throw out LK.Danku, make sure you land a full j.HK combo to maximize your damage and stun. Sometimes you’re just in range for a cr.MK xx EX Danku. If you are, spend that EX for a knockdown, don’t settle for a meterless cr.MK xx Gadouken. You can also try a cr.MK xx HK.Danku at max range, though Dhalsim is usually holed up in block unless he’s mashing throw.
Obviously, if you’re in range for cl.MP/cl.HP xx HK Danku, do it. Even better, cl.MP/cl.HP xx Gadouken FADC cl.MP/cl.HP xx HK Danku. You should even be able to j.HK > Shissou Buraiken if you know you’ve got the jump-in.
When there’s a fireball on the screen, don’t Focus if he’s in range to tag you with a normal (That means 9/10ths of the screen). If you find your Dhalsim is a bit friendly with s.HP or cr.HP, fire that sucker up. You can catch him with a Level 1 or even a Level 2 if you catch a heavy limb before he can react. If he’s throwing out light attacks, he’s going to blow through you, and I don’t think you can react fast enough, especially online, to dash back to safety.
If you know your opponent has the fireball trap game down. Curse yourself and everyone you know. There’s this magical distance where Dan doesn’t have any options to avoid a fireball trap outside of jumping, Dhalsim can FADC to make this distance so much larger. This means you may actually have to block a fireball as a yomi option. Don’t block endlessly. Don’t let a good Dhalsim read your block. Even if it means dashing back for a moment to cover your options. Using Gadouken in range of Dhalsim’s normals is dangerous as well, since he can tag you cancelling out a fireball, or even air teleport on reaction. Dhalsim may teleport backwards instead of initiating a trap in an attempt to psyche you out and eat a fireball.
If Dhalsim gets a trap on you, successful or not, you’ve got a long trek back to the other corner. Hope you don’t die of dysentery. Make sure you punish any teleport traps that he fucks up, or even naked teleport if he’s an idiot. Make him pay for his insolence with a good Koryuken, cl.HK, or LP if you’re not sure about the timing or height.
I have this habit of just doing naked Koryuken FADC on my opponent’s wakeup. Don’t. If Dhalsim uses wakeup Teleport, you’re free. You have that meaty cr.LK. Use it. You can also do super-meaty EX Danku for frame-advantage and profit. Watch out for wakeup Supers, though. :S
I suppose the rest is just standard shenanigans. Don’t let him throw you. Watch out for the anti-air potential of his Super and Ultras, which makes moonshot jump-ins a terrible idea, and don’t get discouraged. Take it slow. You have about two chances a round to get your damage in on Dhalsim. I’d even Ume-Koryu if the Dhalsim is getting predictable with the rhythm on his normals.
I’d call it just barely in Dhalsim’s favour.
I like Shissou Buraiken for this matchup, simply due to the chance of landing a Focus Attack, and I never have meter for Koryuken FADC Haoh Gadouken due to the amount of EX Danku I use in footsies (if you can call it that) and on wakeup.
There’s two kinds of Hondas. There’s Real Hondas and Internet Hondas. Here’s my strategy for both.
Internet Hondas:
I neutral and back jump like a maniac. Online, since you can’t Koryuken fullscreen Headbutts on reaction, this serves as a harsh deterrent to random headbutts, which easily lose to j.HK and nj.HP at range. This is going to be awesome in AE, since nj.HP is probably going to wreck a headbutt you manage to catch one. :lol:
You can also use Reversal Shissou Buraiken after HP.Headbutt.
That’s only one level of retardation that you need to deal with. It’s imperative that you learn how to punish random Buttsplashes. EX Danku as he lands after a total whiff is an easy one that covers a lot of ground. All Buttstomps whiff if you’re crouching. The only thing you can reliably land in this situation, regardless of distance, is a Level 1 Focus. You want to do this and dash back. If it’s a reversal Buttsmush, you’ll get blown up. EX Koryuken will work as an end-all-be-all in this situation if it’s laggy and you’re having trouble timing it. Mash it using 32123 and you’ll be able to Auto-Correct it mindlessly.
On the subject of Honda’s Neutral Derping.HP, you can anti-air it using Ultra, but that’s about it. However, while he’s doing this, he’s not building meter, and you can by sitting back and chucking Gadoukens. Once he stops, or decides to build his own meter by whiffing Oicho Throw, you can start your approach.
With that out of the way, we can get started…
Real Hondas:
The poking game in this kind of sucks. His normals all have really nice hitboxes on them, especially his far.HP. The combination of his strong normals and the safety of nj.HP means your strategy is to get the knockdown where ever you can find it, and hopefully, Honda has no meter when he does. Real Hondas tend to covet their meter, so this can be a real pain. The only solution to get a Real Honda to burn meter is by knocking him down.
Once you’ve got Honda on his back with no meter, you can do a late Knee to beat all of his non-EX reversals outside of Super and Ultra I. You want to time the Knee to start just before he wakes up, so that you blow through any invincibility frames of the Headbutt. You need to start the Knee about 9 to 12 frames before his wakeup, and you want to space it properly so it covers all of his wakeup options due to hitbox shenanigans. I’m not sure if there’s a position where it covers literally everything, due to the myriad of normals he can use before LK.Danku will actually reach it’s active frames, but feel out what works.
After he’s afraid to do anything but block, mix up with tick-throws, a sneaky crossup, etc. After blocked LK.Danku, it’s your call. Read the Honda and don’t get tagged by a reversal or something.
Oh yeah, no MK and HK Danku if he’s got Oicho Breaker stocked. Jesus Christ. You’ll be a Saikyo Pancake.
Watch out for tick-Oicho Throws, too.
I call it a 6.5/3.5, worse if the Honda is smart with his meter and has Ultra II.
Krackatoa, with the recent semi loss of some of our other Saikyo Masters to these boards ( Xiahou, Sugami), I just want to thank you deeply for your continued excellence and perserverance through the Saikyo Arts. Thanks much for these posts, the ones you have uhm…posted in the past, and the…posts you will…post… in the future!..of posting.
You deserve a medal. Or at least some tree trimming shears.
Thanks much for the Honda and Sim matchup advice. When I ussually ask ppl for help with a match up, I dont really expect the comprehensiveness youve shwon. I think with this I can really step my game up. A lot.