Why is Dee Jay considered bad, again?

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
1

He has a good projectile, great normals, great air to air, godlike anti-air, good backdash, a “divekick” (knee; does it have poor block stun?) a special move that beats lows and is only -4 (?) on block and thus basically impossible to punish for a lot of characters, an upper body invincible move that combos into ultra for 500 damage (MGU can be meatied, though, right). What makes him bad? Seems to me like he handles pressure and wakeup situations pretty well. Can’t be jumped and stuff. Can you cr lk meaty his forward kick? I always thought all his upkicks, including ex, missed lows, but his ex one hits most lows. It doesn’t hit Yang’s cr mk from perfect distance, but it hits cr lk, for instance.

I actually think Dee Jay is one of the hardest characters in the game to be up against. Perhaps there is something I am missing.

2

There are few things wrong with him that aren’t apparent until you actually play him for a while. He has a ton of AA’s…but all of them a step below really the really great known AA’s. He’s gotten his buffed upkicks…but seems like they found a way to semi nerf it…like they usually do with Dj. He gets a buff and a hidden nerf all the time for some reason. Knee does have poor blockstun…Hit stun was increased since his last version. I’m not going to speak on the New ex Mchnupper…I think they butchered that move. A lot of his hard buttons have some issue with them or cant be used in combos consistently…They’ve buffed his medium attacks to the point where his hard ones almost aren’t worth it anyway. Honestly he just needs a tweek here or there. I personally don’t think DJ is meant to, by design of his move set, to be Super hella strong. I think he’s a character that can adapt to bunch of different play styles but not be extremely strong in either of them.

3

But what’s up with everyone saying he’s joke tier and stuff? I get the impression that they are just bandwagoning. What’s your opinion on that? Also, isn’t his AA actually THE best in the game? It’s four frames (right?) so it can be safejumped, but with delayed wakeup that isn’t very easy anymore. It absolutely kills crossup attempts.

4

I definitely don’t think he’s joke tier. He’s got his matchups that are tough, but he isn’t getting steamrolled by everyone. I consider the 3 frame reversals that can be canceled to be the best. You may be able to punish them now after they FADC…but you have to guess or be ready for if they just release the focus attack or backdash or forward dash grab. All reversals can be punished now, so it’s no big deal…but having options is better than none. Deejay has to just sit there, so whatever. I think a lot of the joke tier stuff is just people picking him up and realizing that he isn’t a character you can flow chart to victory with. His options aren’t as great as they appear and once the inexperienced get past “He’s good now hype” people play him they feel like: Why should I play a ghetto Guile/ crappy rush down character when I can devote my time into Guile or one of the million dive kickers? I think that’s exactly how it goes.

5

couple things wrong with your post

he does not have a good backdash. lot’s of characters can do a couple meaty jabs or shorts, and if deejay backdashes, the second attack will hit him. it’s seriously like ryu tier.

He doesn’t have great normals either, as you would put it. I suppose his lights and mediums are fairly decent, but all of his heavy normals have god awful frame data. basically all of them are negative on hit. st.roundhouse has 23 frames of recovery lol. you have to remember that needing charge to cancel into specials is a huge disadvantage in footsies. think of how most charge characters have godlike normals to compensate. Bison, chun, guile and balrog all have top tier normals. Deejay’s normals don’t even come close to competing with them.

upperbody invincibility on EX MGU means nothing. like… when will that ever be useful? it’s shit as a reversal, you need to get pretty lucky to beat anything with it.

light sobat being -4 is not unpunishable for most of the cast unless it’s totally max range. if it’s spaced well it’s usually safe.

in the ultra version before 1.04 he was joke tier.

ex upkicks didn’t hit crouchers. you could knock him down and do a meaty jab with an OS for backdash ALL DAY FOR FREE without fear of any reversal. light sobat didn’t go over lows, which was a huge nerf to his footsie game. they reduced damage on knee shot and his ultra, even though he was always known be a low damage character.

i find that most people that think he wasn’t trash before just didn’t understand him. his footsie potential was just bad. If you stand just outside of slide and light sobat range (which have basically the same range), you can whiff punish both of the moves with ease, as they are on the screen forever. If he throws a fireball at that range, you can jump it on reaction and he won’t have charge for upkicks, and if you did it right he has to either block or attempt a very dangerous anti air with a normal which will often get counterhit. if he walks forward from that range, his options are basically st.mk, slide or knee shot. If you can anti air knee shots, refrain from jumping at him when he has down charge, and know your ranges and whiff punishes, he struggles so much.

1.04 made him A LOT better. the upkicks buff and the return of light sobat made him a decent character. he’s definitely not bottom of the barrel anymore. Even still, I don’t think there are very many matchups that he straight up wins.

6

I figured it becomes guessing game for the opponent on his wakeup since sobat deals with lows and ex mgu deals with high attacks, but maybe ex mgu is so slow that you can just safely do lights against it?

7

I’m not particularly good at SF4 but DeeJay used to be a big problem for me as a Ryu player when I started this game.
When I realized that his anti projectile kicks are easily stuffed with about every normal I have, his projectile is very slow and that I can go ham with meaties on his wake-up and that he doesn’t have any overhead mixups, I started play the matchup much more defensive and patient and often wreck DeeJays that are a lot better Street Fighter players than me just solely on the fact that his toolset is very limited.

I’d put him in the most trashcan tier on every level of play except the lowest where people just learn to play the game.

8

jabs basically beat both of those options, which was why he was so terrible before 1.04. people could just cr.jab OS sweep dj for free on his wakeup. literally nothing would beat it. now that ex upkicks hits crouchers, he demands at least a little respect.

9

Lol Trashcan Tier? You sure you played good Deejays? Ryu was always one of the more fun matchups for me as a Deejay player. I think it’s pretty even with an edge to Ryu…but It’s a match up that Deejay actually commands a little footsie respect in…not many of his matchups allow that. A lot of Deejay’s do hang themselves in this matchup though.

10

Pretty sure he’s not trash tier. He’s actually one of my most hated match ups for Yang. It’s listed as 6-4 Yang but I have a hard time seeing why. Maybe some small adjustments to my game would make drastical improvements.

Maybe I respect his knee too much? It gives him free pressure vs me while I have to work my ass off to get in and will get up kick or normals aa’d, a2a’d or hit by a fireball if I don’t jump at a perfect time and distance.

11

Because he is black. SRK is really racist.

12

He is really good character to play a reactionary game online. So many people fall apart if you simply do nothing and let them hang themself. Biggest reason why so many online monsters think he is great because all of their patterns that normaly work is stopped.

13

Great normals, good back dash, upper invincible move …etc. I …I can’t.

14

How you havin’ trouble as Yang, just stand outside slide/sobat range and neutral jump all day. Eventually the DJ player will slit his wrists and you’ll never have to play him again.

15

Eh, that would net you a guaranteed loss against a decent Dee Jay. He’ll just make sure you’re positioned so that your dive kick does not net you frame advantage. If you dive kick he’ll get to pressure you or anti-air you; if you just neutral jump he’ll throw out a projectile when you land.

16

The reactionary options are all in Yang’s court in that position. It’s not hard to land a dive kick from that position at a frame advantage. If he tries to toss a fireball you can dive kick over top (if he throws it while you’re airborne) or you can jump (if he throws it once you’re grounded). There are no safe options for DJ to commit to at that range except to wait and see what Yang does.

Why don’t you try playing DJ for a bit? You’ll be able to answer the question you asked yourself.

17

Actually, I tried using my main, Gen, against him, and surprisingly enough I find Gen to be the best to use against Dee Jay (out of Gen, Blanka, Bison and Yang).

If I go back to playing Yang I will try out what you’re saying, man, but I actually had better results when I did NOT neutral jump a lot with Yang.

Gen’s different jump arcs are great for dealing with Dee Jay’s zoning, in my opinion. I also found out that Dee Jay’s kicks are less safe than I thought; EX can be punishes quite easily by Gen.

18

Dee Jay isn’t trash anymore

A lot of his flaws can be avoided by playing the match up correctly and avoiding the bad scenarios

Pros
[list]
[] Good Projectile
[] Solid zoning options
[] Good forward walk speed
[] lk sobat crushes lows
[] good reversal
[] Good damage on punishes w/ meter
[] quick light attacks w/ frame advantage
[] 5f sweep, generally safe
[] Good Neutral Jump buttons
[] Best Special Move AA in the game
[] Free Ultra with 2 bars
[] Free Ultra 2 with 1 bar
[] Can’t be meatied for free
[] Doesn’t have many 7-3s left. Maybe just some hard 6-4s still
[] Builds meter quickly
[] Solid crossup
[/list]

Cons
[list]
[] Bad Heavy buttons
[] Floaty jump
[] Bad Jump attacks
[] knee easily anti aired in neutral
[] No fast far reaching normals
[] Requires good spacing
[] Low damage in footsies
[] No strong set up off either ultra
[] Worst throw range in the game
[] Worst throw damage in the game
[] Up kicks doesn’t beat cross ups as well
[] 4f jab
[] Has trouble chasing characters
[] Has trouble getting away from characters
[] AAs require strong knowledge of the game.
[] No reversal that you can FADC
[] Average/Below average backdash
[] Forward dash has bad range
[] Bad Focus attack
[] Some special moves whiff after earlier hits connect (see mgu on most female characters and one hit HK sobat)
[*] EX Air Slasher and EX sobat are both slower than they normal versions
[/list]

19

Free ultra with two bars?

20

Guessing MK sobat level 2 focus crumple Dash ultra 1/2

Other things

  • Low stun on his Heavy buttons (and some medium)
  • Low stun on his throw
  • EX fireball is tied for the worst “just throw it out” fireball in the game
  • U1 is just really mediocre compared to other similar ultras (Chun has better range and startup, Balrog gives better juggle, Honda gives animation on first hit). Dont even get me started on decapre and cammy.
  • Same as above, just with his super.

I have to disagree with two things tho:
*Forward dash has bad range
The range is ok, its just slow. If ryu is the average, deejay is above average in distance.

*Up kicks doesn’t beat cross ups as well
Always works out for me. Its certainly better than Flashkick, Balrog headbutt and decapre stinger from my experience.