The aim of this thread is to discuss and contrast the differing ways Dudley can be played in order to maximise his potential. Obviously a lot depends on your own skill and the character and opponent you are facing, but I think it’s quite interesting to talk about how to try to get the best out of the biggest pimp in 3S.
I started this thread after seeing the Fujiwara videos from the match videos thread. Jesus christ that is a serious Dudley. Fujiwara was pretty much the first big-name Dudley player in Japan, I am pretty sure that those videos are from quite a long time ago, and if you look at how the top Japanese Dudley players of today use him ,it’s very different to see. Fujiwara plays Dudley really agressively, uses the Rocket Upper for maximum damage in 50/ 50’s, jumping in a LOT, setting up a lot of jumping meta-games, which basically boils down to this:
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try to hit you at the highest point in Dudley’s jump where you can still connect a HK after landing.
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try to hit you deeper, the deepest point where the HP or HK can connect.
Varying between one and two means that oppoennts that try to parry risk a 50% chance of eating a “big fat Fujiwara combo TM.”
In addition he also uses:
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Jumpup or jump in HK, timed so that it only just clips the top of the opponents hit box. This still puts them in enough hit stun to link SA1 / SA3 on landing.
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Empty jump in, throw or ground based throw fake-out.
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Late jump in mk or mp, cr lp, Fierce Jet Upper. This one is good because you can do it so late that it pretty much looks like you are going for an empty throw. For saftey, you can just do short short super for verification as an alternative.
Fujiwara also options selects a lot, such as Hk XX ducking (opponent blocked), low option select tech, HK xx EX Machine Gun blow. I also have to say that he is really good at continually applying the pressure on the ground, with superb variation of all Dudley’s moves such as f+mk, f+m, towards + fierce, even mp Machine Gun blow as a poke. All the time in between these moves he is option selecting as well to maximise the chance of landing the one sick combo he is looking for.
My problem with his playstyle is I think it’s too cavalier. I play Dudleys that like to jump in a lot and I will just use some of Dudley’s anti-air chains to keep him out, I’m talking about HK xx Jab MGB, or the mk, hk, hp 4 hit chain, or the mk, towards +mk, hp chain, or maybe a stading medium punch cancelled into a ducking and maybe corkscrew them from behind if they parried me. Opponents can do this too, some of my opponents use things like standing medium punch comboed into hurricane kick, to really make you work to get in. In my opinion if you are just going to jump in all day long, you are asking for punishment.
Now on the other hand, in this day and age we see Kokujin or Jima as probably the best Dudleys in the world. These guys use the Corkscrew blow and the big thing to notice about them is their ground game in comparison to Fujiwara. It is much buffer, and although they of course jump in, they restrict it somewhat and jump in from say just outside sweep distance, as opposed to from ridiculously far away. There’s hella other stuff they do, pretty much relying on trying to zone the opponent to the corner and then starting the 50 / 50’s from there. They also like to “corner-trap” the opponent and quite often will stand at a distance where they can just dictate to the opponent the flow of the match by trapping them in them in the corner. The main variation between these newer Dudleys and the older ones is that they rely on 50 / 50’s much more whereas the older ones used Dudley as a combo machine.
Now of course there are people that use Dudley in other ways, such as gimmicky players and even players that are more patient than Kokujin. So what’s the best style to play Dudley (if there is one)? Please discuss and analyse.