Dudley Q&A: Let's learn... like Gentlemen!

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
1641

Ah so It seems like I’m overusing the overhead, which is a little harder to time and I think has fewer active frames and more recovery; because it is so effective when It works. I use it maybe 2/3 to c.LK 1/3.

Any tips on baiting wake-up shoryus? I have a bad habit of doing s.LP a few times but it usually gets me thrown, or I stand/crouch too close without attacking and also get thrown lol. A lot of the people I play against (under 2,000 PP) mash shoryu or ultra on wake-up btw, but I feel like they make a decision based on what I’m doing. Making baiting a huge advantage.

And what do you punish whiffed throw with? I imagine the gap isn’t huge and I don’t know whether s.HK would connect, depending on spacing. Sorry to ask so many questions but fighting games are a little tricky to learn from scratch lol. Thanks for the input too, I’ll work on reading opponents more, I really don’t want to give anyone a free Ultra against Dudley.

1642

What Chaotix says is talking sense.

People know you want to go for the overhead, and depending on the player, they can buffer a reversal and react to it easy enough. So you have to pick your spots when using it. Going for option selects/safe jumps/meaty cr LK on their wake up will generally be your safest bet if you know you are in a position to use one. But really, it seems like you are having trouble conditioning your opponents more so than anything else. As well as realizing when you can’t condition your opponent.

If you are constantly getting a reversal uppercut through your dropped link that pretty much means they are mashing it out and your links aren’t tight yet (so get them tight). This usually means they don’t actually know what to do against Dudley when he is in close except mash it out. So start blocking mid string/combo. Personally, I will almost never block mid combo since I can pretty much always hit my links when I hit confirm. But if I am playing online (where combos can drop easy from lag) against someone who mashes through strings, I will often be willing to end a combo early to get a free punish.

When it comes to people mashing out in block strings however, you need to mix up when you block. Normally I start doing this after my first attempt at a jump in. If they block the jump in and and immediately reversal, or if they reversal after the first blocked cr. LP it is clear to me that they will mash through strings. So I change gears to blocking at either of those intervals randomly and often getting a free punish. These sorts of players should become easy to lead around since they basically cannot be conditioned by you. But you can know exactly how they will respond without needing to condition them yourself.

If you run into someone who hits you with a reversal after the second cr. LP or at a later point in your block string, you know that it is an opponent that knows his timings. Which also means that it is probably someone that is not mashing, since it would have hit a reversal during the earlier points in the string. Those people are simply waiting for you to think you can finish your block string comfortably before they reversal at an opportune moment. Dealing with these sorts of players is much more difficult and really requires not just mixing up blocking mid string, but also mixing up your strings so they can’t become too familiar with what you are going for.

I find that if I keep doing cr. lpx2 into kidney blow to keep positioning, people will look to reversal during Kidney Blow’s start up. So if I not only mix up blocking mid block string, but start mixing up my block strings, these sorts of opponents will hopefully become conditioned to second guess the signals that they look for to reversal.

This is where i think Target combos have a good use in Dudley’s game. They can’t be mashed through, often push you back to a safe distance, can be ended early for a mix up, and some can be linked off of as a hit confirm. But I feel like at beginner levels of Dudley play, their usefulness won’t feel quite as apparent.

Sorry for the wall of text. I hope I don’t sound like a crazy person with all this =P

1643

Seconding this part a lot - don’t think of it as “on their wakeup I do A, B, C, or D.” Think of it as “I can do A, B, C, or D, but my opponent knows that so I’ll do something completely different.” Against decent opponents whiffing moves over their body before they get up and mixing up your timings makes you harder to read. You want to catch your opponents by surprise if you can, you don’t want to have to force damage through. Once you get your opponent unsettled, THEN you go for meaty overheads.

One good example is doing s.hk xx lk duck on the opponent’s wakeup, and then throwing him. This is a terrible idea (in AE at least) on paper but it’s a surprise tick into throw that’s less obvious than jab jab throw. This is a strategy only useful against decent or better opponents, however.

One more thing to mention is that you can intentionally add delays in your blockstrings versus opponents that like to reversal. For example, do f.mk (blocked), then do a delayed backthrow. If they uppercut you’ll block. If they stand tech you’ll tech their throw. If they crouch tech you will get hit because you gave up your frame advantage in order to bait the reversal. If they delayed uppercut you will get hit too. But this is them making a conscious decision not to reversal uppercut, which means you got suckered. Then once they stop uppercutting you do more airtight blockstrings to catch throw techs or mash jabs or whatever.

You really need to punish uppercuts for high damage too. Throw punishes are not acceptable. Actually, you should at least do s.hk xx EX MGB -> duck upper, preferably starting with a f.mk for better range and damage.

1644

I think that the way to win in SF4 and fighting games in general is to know your opponents options/strategies, take them away, and then make them play how you want them to play. If they reversal you out of not-true blockstrings, you must bait the reversal and punish them hard for it. If they backdash, option select to take the backdash away. Unless you’re opponent is very stubborn or dumb they will change how they play and then you have them where you want them. With this mentality, don’t be afraid to lose a round or match just trying stuff out to figure out how they play. Once you know, they are screwed.

Meaty crouch short is probably THE move you must know how to execute when your opponent wakes up. It is too good to not be using.

I also agree with Kiku about whiffing moves. This may not seem like much, but it has a big effect psychologically on your opponent especially if you make it seem like a mistake. You can bait tons of things by whiffing moves in the right situations and you can change how your opponent blocks i.e. whiffing crouch short when the opponent is waking up and then doing Dart Shot.

EDIT: On what frame of ducking can you cancel it into ducking straight or ducking upper?

1645

Thanks a lot for the input guys, couldn’t have expected that much help; gotta love these boards.

It’s a lot to take in but I’m going to start working on the things you’ve suggested today; spend some time in training mode then spend a while online trying some of it out.

I’ll be emphasizing c.LK over Dart Shot for sure; the concept of using the easier one then switching it up when they become accustomed to blocking low seems too good to pass up; It doesn’t become such a relatively tricky option when I’ve conditioned my opponent to give me more frames to utilize it while they block low. I’ll experiment with whiffing moves to bait the opponent on their wake-up and moving just outside grab range for a good shot at a punish (something I haven’t been doing).

I haven’t learnt Option Selects or Safe Jumps yet; I get the concepts but I don’t use any right now. Not many people seem to backdash against me at the moment for the OS, though I should probably start learning those. As for Safe Jumps I don’t really know how to pull those off; I assume you whiff an air move and recover before anything your opponent throws at you can hit or maybe it’s just the spacing and timing of the jump; again, I don’t really know how to use these with Dudley just yet.

I’ve never considered intentionally dropping block strings or combos (though this happens more than I’d like) to bait a reversal. Embarrassingly I don’t really have any distinct block strings; I tend to jump toward HK, then throw out a few jabs and Kidney Blows trying to get a lucky hit; and if possible, hit confirm into damage. I guess this is why messing up the Dart Shot on someone’s wake-up irks me so much, because other than that my damage-output is luck based (or at least more luck based) especially as Dudley’s sweeps are painfully slow, getting that knockdown can be a little tricky.

How should I develop block-strings; just look through the frame-data for moves that link together on block without leaving a big enough gap for a reversal, then block/walk forwards/jump when there’s nothing that can connect safely?

My game-plan against most characters seems to just be landing a s.HK however I can, and turning that into damage and a knockdown and repeating from there. Therefore I don’t like using anything but f.MK and Crouching Jab generally when close. I find c.LK harder to use with its range and the timing on its Hit-Confirm into c.LP (Though I’ll practice this anyway). Should I be throwing out attacks until I’m too far away for a Hit-Confirm into s.HK, and go for something else (I exclusively cancel the s.HK; nothing else really) with more range but less damage? Or just get back into that range as quickly as I can (Excluding a baited punishment combo).

Anyway, massive thanks for the help. I’ll definitely work on my Dudley, and ask the simple questions when I find myself getting destroyed without knowing a reliable workaround.

Edit: Damn, I am a Wall of Text guru; It doesn’t seem this long in the Quick Reply box lol. Sorry for the rambling I guess.

1646

You need to cater your block strings off of what your opponent is doing. Usually when I get in the first time I’ll do f. MK > Throw. If they aren’t pressing buttons, obviously they’ll get thrown.

If they’re mashing jab/crouch tech, I’ll usually do F. MK > cr. MP xx/ whatevs.

If they’re doing stand grab I do F. MK, walk back, and wait for the whiffed grab animation to punish with st. HK xx EX MGB. If that’s too hard though you could do walk back > cr. MP xx LP MGB.

If I do F. MK > cr. LP > cr. LP and they try to walk back, I hit them with cr. MK. Obviously, if they’re mashing DP, I’ll do F. MK > walk back > Punish.

The thing I think more players need to realize is that frame traps aren’t supposed to go on forever, you need to commit to your mixup early on and if it doesn’t work, immediately use the counter. The longer you’re in there face pushing buttons, the more you’re putting yourself at risk.

It took me a long time to get to the point where I could consciously figure out what my opponent was doing without just mashing random strings and getting combos but it’s really important in beating people that actually know the Dudley matchup.

1647

I’ve played a few hours of online today, I realized that I do use cr.MK in blockstrings, but not well. I’ll commonly do jt.HK, f.MK, cr.LP,cr.LP, cr.MK; but it almost never works and despite being on +3 frame advantage (I think) I usually get swept in cr.MKs start-up. And it pushes me out of range of any of Dudley’s normals resetting the pressure, which doesn’t seem useful. Even with +3 frame advantage its 7 frames of start-up I think, seems a little dangerous to use. I tend to react to the two cr.LPs having pushed me back with a flailing attempt at a sweep but generally people don’t walk towards me at that point.

I’m getting a little better at choosing when to cancel the blockstring after the jump-in and do a walk-up throw but I don’t feel like the people I played against chose to grab tech rather than block/attack (which I suppose means I should have exploited that more).

I’ve pretty much never used cr.MP, like at all. I don’t even know what it cancels into though I wouldn’t mind having small punish combos that condition my opponent into blocking low/hesitating.

Also I’m pretty sure I’ve never purposely punished a whiffed grab with anything more than a s.HP, I generally backdash from fear of a command grab from the grapplers, and that’s quick and has good range; though 120 damage is by no means 300-600 with a knockdown. I’ll have to work on getting the range right for the s.HK xx punish; I’d much rather use s.HK than cr.MP but I’ll have to see what I can handle.

I really like the concept of having a block-string be a single attack where I make a guess once and with enough knowledge tip the odds in my favor; rather than just repeating myself or blindly guessing without any real context.

I put the cr.LK wake-up strategy into play today and found it amazingly effective; It worked maybe three quarters of the time. I messed it up a couple times with heavy lag but that’s not too big a deal, and sometimes it was blocked, which makes sense; at least I can force some people to block on wake-up now. That alone was great, but when I then include the overhead It was doubly effective; after having messed people up with the low hit-confirm beforehand. Had a close game with a Chun earlier but through once knockdown ended up getting a perfect in the third round.

1648

Against the grapplers you can hit them with standing lp while they’re crouching, so if you’re really scared about getting 360’d do crouch jab x2 then standing jab. That usually pushes you out of range and if they still blindly throw a command grab out you can just step forward slightly and hit st. Hk.

cr.MP can combo into LP MGB and MP MGB.

People are afraid of getting hit high so much that they will get hit low on wake-up all day… at least until they start backdashing.

1649

Also, cr. MP links into St. HK and on counter hit it’s a pretty easy link. It’s +1 on block too, so you can do it again from max range and if they press a button you can get the counterhit only option select cr. MP xx EX MGB. Obviously, you give up momentum if they don’t press a button but it’s still a pretty safe bet. If they don’t press buttons after the first one, you can do f. MK again and go for another mixup. IF you’re getting hit by sweep before you can get in, focus attack from that outside range is a good way to get back in.

1650

Yeah people seem to take the overhead as some kind of insult lol; I’ll get one in return sometimes and I’m surprised just how many people block my first attempt, despite it being a rare tool; as far as combo-able overheads go.

I’ll definitely work on punishing grabs with s.HK and with cr.LP x 2 > s.LP I should be safe from reversals until I whiff one right; or mistime one up close?

With cr.MP I’m gonna need to practice that; don’t know the links or range. I’m not excellent with cr.LP, cr.LP, s.HK when its not point blank, I tend to either give up when I think I’m too far, whiff the s.HK or fail to cancel the HK because I expected it to miss, which sucks. If I could do a cr.MP > MP MGB it’d get me closer and do more damage which would be cool instead of pushing myself out for 80 damage or whatever i get from two jabs.

Edit: Yay for cr.MP, s.HK link. Who needs kicks when you have that roundhouse. I might try that OS considering I’ve been amassing quite a lot of meter and despite being -8 on block EX MGB doesn’t get punished often or hard enough to worry too much. Do I react to the “Counter-Hit” icon appearing or just go for it if I think it would work? It’d be great to go from mix-up, to combo to knockdown; with better range than a hit-confirmed s.HK. Though I haven’t been OSing thus far; mainly because my links needed work and I don’t see many backdashes here in the sub 2,000 PP arena. I gather they’re somewhat advanced moves, designed to punish common reactions.

1651

Honestly, characters like Zangief and Thawk are dangerous to be near on their wakeup. The few times I do go for a mixup against them I go for the overhead, just because it’s been 100% for me, since they aren’t expecting you to pressure then anyway. You can get grabbed/lariated/Condor spired out of a jab, might as well go all in.

1652

I think that if you get the opportunity to do so, which usually always means that Gief and Hawk have no meter and are knocked down, you should go attack them when they wake-up.The only thing that you’re going to lose to with a meaty crouch short is the Condor Spire and if you don’t land a hit you can push yourself out with jabs.

1653

Done wit boards until AE comes out.

Yall gotta learn to just play and let others come to that realization good players get to on their on.

1654

I’m sorry what?

1655

That sounds well enough in concept but the game doesn’t really explain anything. It never mentions hit-confirms, option selects, block-strings, decent combos, resets, decent pokes, footsies, counter-hit attributes, frame-data, frame-traps, baits, mind games, controlling space, buffering inputs, execution aids, cross-ups, the wake-up game,mix-ups or about a thousand other things.

Maybe if you’ve been playing for a decade a lot of those things come naturally; but this is my first real fighting game and I seriously doubt I’d ever learn much of it by just playing a lot. I’ve put about 400 hours into Super and 1,100 ranked matches, plus read and watched a lot of stuff online trying to learn more and still feel I have a long way to go to get better. Maybe I just don’t have the patience to get my ass kicked for thousands of games without knowing why; that wouldn’t be fun for me. As dumbed-down as the SF4 series might be it; takes loads of effort for a beginner to pick it up and improve, compared to Call of Duty or something which can be “learned by doing” much more.

So I’ll probably continue asking questions and it’s completely up to people whether they want to respond; as always. :slight_smile:

1656

The SF4 series isn’t dumbed down all that much. It’s really not as big of a deal as you would have heard when SF4 first came out. If you’re ass player of FG’s, SSF4 isn’t going to change that.

MVC3 on the other hand. Now there’s a retarded-ass easy-ass fuckin’ stupid-ass piece of shit.

1657

So you’re an MvC3 fan I take it? lol

And it’s less that I suck as I’ve never played them before, outside of Tekken/Soul Calibur when I was like 8. Before getting Super in May last year I’d never played a Street Fighter game; so I was hardly going to be a pro when I did. Came in not knowing how to throw a fireball.

1658

this is/was the problem with all new dudley players.
they come/came here not knowing basic street fighter, get/got mad and main a better character/Ryu.

1659

Been playing Super 11 months, maining Dudley since the beginning. I’ll get mad but I won’t abandon Dudley. Hell, I put up with getting wake-up Ultra’d twice and random Ultra’d in a match I lost against a Dudley with more points than me just now; after landing c.LK, c.LP, s.HK xx MK Ducking Upper xx FADC c.LP, c.LP, s.HK xx Jet Upper. I’ll just try to get more determined when I get angry lol. Plus I hate Ryu; so there’s that.

I would probably get less frustrated if I played Ryu, Ken or whoever gets more mileage out of less work (In low-level play) but I wouldn’t be as proud of winning, which sort of defeats the purpose.

As much of a crap player as I am; I feel a duty to represent Dudley without doing Wake-up ultras and full-screen EX MGBs.

Besides, it’s a fucking game; I’d rather have fun with it than not.

1660

heh, I can get mad all the time when I use Dudley… but never will I ever switch to a bitch character like Ryu.

I respect myself for the hate of losing a lot and there was times I wanted to stop playing and drop Dudley, but I kept going. Even though I’m still struggling on almost all of my matchups… I keep going.