It was fun and all, but lets get real for a second

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
1

I guess I will get straight to the point.

Dudley will never win tournament if he is your only character.
Let’s face it, we all love using him. We all love showing off our combos, and we love our anti-projectiles strategies. But when it’s all set an done, Dudley is similar to Dan. He will not win a tournament without having a secondary.

So I guess I am posting this to let go of some of the built in frustrations I have with him.

First off, he has no footsies game. If he gets zoned out by a really good player, he loses easily.

Another thing, people say that "Oh once you get in on them, it’s over. It’s in your favor. Wrong. When facing a good player, once you get in on them, a couple of things happen.

  1. They block your overhead, you eat a grab.
  2. You start a blockstring, and attempt to continue it with an empty duck. Which then leads you to eating a grab.
  3. You try a frame trap with Forward MK, guess what? You eat a grab.
  4. You attempt a blockstring with LP, LP, MP, Low Ducking Uppercut, you eat a jab+combo, since its unsafe on block.
  5. You attempt the same thing as #4 only instead do Low Ducking Straight, still unsafe, you eat a combo.
  6. His wakeup game is atrocious if you don’t have 3 bars to ex upper, fadc.
  7. Most people know his tricks by now. JAB JAB HK, EMPTY DUCK, GRAB. Gets teched, but they don’t even need to tech, they can simply jab you out of it.
  1. The only safe move I found that Dudley has is blockstring, into LP MGB. But then all the opponent has to do after that is backdash, and your back in square one, the zoning game.

My point an case I am trying to make it, if you want to get serious with SSF4 the game, Dudley shouldn’t be your main.

I talked to a couple of top players as Chinatown Fair, and they all seem to agree that a secondary or a new main is required.

One even compared Dudley and other low tier characters to Dan.

…

Now with that said, I will give him another go at a local tourny this wednesday. But to be honest, its always an uphill battle for Dudley. Whether he faces Bison that easy gets your pressured with Scissor kicks, and if you even attempt to press button you will get counter hit, forcing you to sit and block, or the likes of chun li where she will out poke you all day as if your dudley is a smaller version of zangief.

I will be switching over to a new character shortly…

Anyways, just my 2 cents.

Carry on.:china:

2

I’m maining Dudley 100% so I know your struggles. I haven’t been doing too badly with him in tournaments though, so I’ll offer some shitty advice.

  1. If they’re blocking your overhead, use meaty cr. short, cr. jab xx HK more. The good thing about Dudley’s overhead is you don’t have to actually land it to win a match. You only have to make your opponent worry about blocking it and then tagging them with something else.

  2. End your strings with a far F. MK or plain old LP MGB. It switches your rhythm up and it prevents your empty ducks from looking telegraphed, all while closing distance.

  3. If you’re getting grabbed after F. MK, you’re not pressing buttons fast enough. You can also use F. MK as an ex backswing setup.

  4. FADC that bitch. If it hits, you get another free jab combo and a shit load of stun. If it doesn’t, who cares? You’re still in their face.

  5. I agree, duck straight sucks.

  6. Use ex Counter on non-safe jumpins. This pretty much kills your opponents cross up game on your wakeup.

  7. Switch it up then! If your opponent down loads your block string, then do something else! :slight_smile:

Hope it helps. Dudley isn’t the best, but he fits my playstyle more than anyone so I’ll continue to fight the classy fight! I hope you do too.

3

Don’t get me wrong, I do well with Dudley at tournaments. Top 16-top8 usually. But he’s missing something I just can’t seem to explain properly to get him to that top 1.

4

2 Things: A poke and a combo into untechable knockdown.

That’s what duds is missing.

5

you lost me, you mean on dudz?

6

Just wait a couple of months for the arcade balance patch.

In the meantime, if people get wise to your tricks, then mix it up.

7

Dudley is like Geif. You have to spend you life bar like currency to move in and get that knockdown so you stay in.

We all know Dudley is difficult to win with. If we wanted easy wins, we wouldn’t be playing Dudley. I thought you were like Vangeif, Sabre or NinjaCW who stuck to one character.

I don’t even throw out empty ducks after a block c. MP or s. HK. I do LP MGB and throw out a jab immediately after to see if I can get a hit and combo or I do a s. FP.

Dudley is very susceptible to mash jabs and mash throws, I’ve tried to blow up crouch techs and throw attempts with Jet Uppers after I get them guessing throws.

I don’t expect this to be good advice but maybe you can take something useful from it.

8

This

also is there really gonna be an arcade balance patch? if there is spam Ono’s block for armor on SSB and I. Frames on LP.DP

9

OMG IT"S SO SIMPLE. i never thought about…mixing up my mixups…

Dudley has a fundamental problem more deeply-seeded in his core design. He just doesn’t fit into the ssf4 system to be competitive.
Other Rushdown characters are so effective in ssf4 because they blow up crouch-teching for free. Rufus, Cammy and C Viper jump out at me immediately. Not only do they blow it up, they have good followups be it oki or big damage.

ROFL

10

nobody started with dudley to get over a molehill. he was supposed to be top tier at first and everyone bandwagoned, then we all found out he blew.

11

I picked him up cuz I mained him in 3rd strike o.o;

12

I did. Everyone was like “OMG Dudley broke, S tier new Sagat”. I was like “Lol no, go play 3rd Strike and find out why”.

He has the same problems as he did in 3rd Strike and then some (SSB sucks, slower sweep).

I didn’t want to play him in SSF4 at first because I thought he’d be worse and they wouldn’t have him feling like his 3rd Strike self. I was wrong, he’s a lot of fun to play and they did an ok job getting him into SSF4 (I think they played it too safe in a few areas). He’s a lot fun than Guy, that’s for sure.

13

I’ve been feeling some pretty similar frustrations, Liquid. Just the other day I pretty much reached the same conclusion as well and decided to start learning a new character. The only problem is I don’t find playing with any other characters moveset to be nearly as fun. But it is immensely frustrating to know that incredibly basic tactics can pretty much completely shut Dudley out. Bison and Chun in particular can just stand around randomly hitting normals and keep most any Dudley at bay. Shoto cr. MK can be buffered into hadou constantly, and on reaction can DP instead if you try to jump in. The list goes on. I can only hope that capcom actually does some rebalancing when the arcade game hits. I still do think it would not take much to make Dudley high tier, but he currently is missing what he needs to be able to stand up next to half the cast.

14

I wouldn’t say he blows, but yeah not being top tier killed his poularity. I still feel that dudley is viable, but certainly not as viable as a good number of the cast, but he is certainly tourney worthy. Playing Dudley also might depend on a little luck, but lets be honest here people,

If Dudley was like Balrog, would we want to play him?

15

I might take a break from Dudley and do the C to Shining C thing just to step up my fundamentals and get a general knowledge with the entire cast.

16

Easy street is the other way, with Dudley it’s always uphill!
But yea, I see what OP is saying, but I don’t think it’s that grim.
On paper Dudley seems like a lost cause, but in a real match I feel that you can still be unpredictable enough so that the opponent can’t keep track of every throw and combo attempt.
Wake up is lacking, that I’ll give you. (and SSB is crap ofc)

17

Dudley’s main problem is he has too many bad matches. Like 40% of the cast is a Dudley counter pick.

18

exactly 40 percent acutally, but i feel alot of those aren’t accurate

19

Honestly, blocking is the best option on wakeup 90% of the time for every character. Backdashes are easily OS for an untechable knockdown (Dudley also has one of the better backdashes in this game), invincible moves cost meter to make safe or to even do. Seriously, just block and tech.

Okay we know Dudley has weaknesses and know what they are because this isn’t the first time this topic has came up. Instead of focusing on his weaknesses and why he’s has a hard time vs everyone or why he’s a bad character, let’s work together and figure out how to minimize these weaknesses and capitalize on his strengths, like Dudley’s ability to make people panic or to hit ~300 damage off a jab for 1 bar.

20

Honestly to use dudley you have to have full concentration and watch out for everything. I’ve mained dudley in 3s and mained dudley in super. I will always main him because he’s fun, has great mix up, and can cause masive stun. To use dudley your defense has to be on point and you also have to be patient. Since I learned to crouch tech I’ve won so much more.

We all know of dudleys weakness. Suspect to pokes, footsies aren’t that good, and bad wake up. But honestly I think he has a lot of good going for him. Most of his battles are uphill battles but to me that’s the fun of using him. I think dudley can win a tourney or 2 but he has to work realy hard for it. If we wanted to use brain dead characters then most of us would be using jabrog.

I for one will continue to main dudley no matter what, win or lose.