Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike/Dudley/Strategy

Strategies

Overview

Dudley is a very solid well rounded character in almost all aspects, a great heavyweight rushdown character. His particular strength lies in his damaging juggles and strong 50-50 corner game. His predominant weakness is a lack of a "decent" low poke.

Dudley's main goals are ultimately to get meter, get a knockdown in the corner, and use the huge reward on everything he has up-close to force the opponent to take a high/low 50/50 into super.

Basics

When playing as Dudley you'll be looking to do only one thing. Get your opponent in the corner. This is, without out doubt, Dudley's strongest position. From here, create mixups via meaty high/low, throw, or throw tech punishes. You can also use f.mk/cr.lk to tick throw and/or check their blocking direction, and can use backswing blow to check their defensive OS while baiting and covering reversal throw/DP.

Outside of the corner, you're trying to get them there without taking excessive damage or getting cornered yourself. To force offense, walk up to crouching MK range; mix up whether you HP or F + HP for corner push, continue walking forward to get your up-close pressure started, jump, or counterpoke/look for an antiair.

When jumping, remember that there are 3 main attack timings that cover an opponent's antiair parry: early with j.hk, mid and late with attacks of your choice. Make sure to add your own air parries inside your jump arc, and remember that not every whiffed button is your opportunity to press a jumping attack. If they blocked, they could've parried or DPed instead; sometimes you need to just take the mixup. Empty jump throw, empty jump short swing blow, and empty jump button are all viable choices, and all of them can grant corner push, either directly or indirectly.

Super Art Selection

As it stands today, most players pick SA3 with Dudley. You occasionally see some using SA1 (Fujiwara, for example), but never SA2.

• SA1
  • Two large stocks, big damage, 1 frame start-up
  • Opponents may fall out of combos
    • Use on: Makoto, twins, characters that are hard to hit
    • SA1 allows you to link from dart shot from significantly further away vs Makoto and twins. The burst damage can also allow you to get the most out of your interactions vs characters who are hard to hit

• SA2
  • Covers ground effectively
  • Opponents may fall out of combos, slower start-up, One medium size stock
    • Use on: N/A

• SA3
  • Three small stocks, 1 frame start-up
  • Less than average damage
    • Use on: All (with the possible exception of Makoto)

Kara-Throws

• Slipping Jab: +12 pixels
• Stomach Blow: +10 pixels

Zoning

Vs most characters, Dudley can use his HP and F + HP to catch pokes and push opponents towards the corner. This should be used sparingly (particularly F + HP) as excessive use will lead to easy parries, whiff punishes or jump in combos for the opponent. The other obvious choice is standing HK. The fear of getting caught by it can be enough to stop people from dashing in. Against an opponent who loves poking with mids, just counter poke with standing HK. At around mid-range, just throw it out and buffer in a EX Machine Gun or Ducking command dash, that way it will only come out if you catch a limb.

Your typical tick throw move is F + MK. It will advance you forward and has good frame advantage on block. It can also be both linked and cancelled into super; the cancel can catch people asleep at the wheel after they've parried it.

s.MP and c.MP are your friends. They are fast and long range and can lead into ducking XX SA.

Mixups

In general, when playing as Dudley, you should predominantly be trying to get your opponent on the floor, in either of the two stage edges. This places you in a great position, where you can [almost] use anything you want to keep pressure on.

The key to Mixup game is training your opponent to do certain things. Or to think that you plan to do certain things. Making movements typical of someone looking to attempt a low roundhouse can be used to goad people into attempting to parry low. Obviously at this point the plan of attack changes to attacking high, and following up with another attack.

Examples of Corner Mixup tools:

• Throwing - As with most characters, after training (see above) someone to parry, throwing can disorient people, allowing subsequent strikes to be easier.
• Liver Blow (F + MK) - A relatively fast move, this can be used in tick throws effectively. Also, it's high recovery provides ample opportunity to trick people into defending the grab or parrying the punch. Its his best move to whiff on wakeup because its so quick and looks like a meaty setup.
• Dart Shot (F + HK) - A godly overhead, its fast and links to SA1/SA3 on crouching opponents. It can also be comboed into s.MK if you dont have meter. Also you can whiff an early one to scare them then mixup.
• Short Swing Blow - This move should mainly be used to punish throws. If you smell a throw, ssb XX SA. I like to jump straight up empty jump in/parry, if they dont do anything just SSB right when you land since this is a very common time to throw. Can also be used to confuse parry happy opponents, the odd timings can put people off, and the move can also be comboed into a super. It should, however, be used conservatively despite it's high damage because it is slow and not entirely safe. Note that EX SSB has start-up invincibility.
• c.HK - Obvious combos aside, the fear of being hit by this move can be used to your advantage in combination with Dart Shot.
• c.LK - Used primarly to double hit confirm to a super, but it can be used in the c.LK > c.MP > c.HP combo for some easy damage and pretty decent stun.

Anti-Air

Dudley has many unique AA options.

• A popular anti-air is Dudleys target combo MK -> HK -> HP . This is one of his better options because the chain is 4 hits making it a little more difficult to parry. No good player will have a problem parrying this but sometimes if they were too close on the jump, the parries can make them float over Dudley, possibly missing the jump in. Also if you train them to expect the full chain, just stop after the MK, they may expect to parry giving you time to block.
• Another anti-air option is F + MK XX Fierce Jet Upper XX SA3. This is better against players who do empty parry jump ins because the F + MK does not hit very high and it is much more difficult to parry. Its a pretty beefy combo for an anti-air too.
• Dudely's ducking command dash is a powerful anti-air tool. One fancy use is countering a jump-in by ducking XX SA3. The ducking will go under and behind the attacker then SA3 will come out behind the air borne attacker. This is a difficult parry, but expect that any good player will parry it. Atleast if they do parry it, the attacker will still be in the air moving away from Dudley, this extra range between the characters will make it more difficult to land a decent combo if they land one at all.
• Dudley can use his ducking command dash to counter an opponent far away who is jumping forward. Its the same idea, but instead of dashing under, command dash right in front of the jumper and cancel to SA3. If they put out an attack, the invincibility frames of the super will allow you to avoid the attack.
• One final use of the ducking command dash is against people who like to do empty parry jump ins. Throw out either s.MP or s.HK as an anti-air. They parry. Instead of eating the jump-in, simply cancel the s.MP or s.HK into HK ducking. This will send you under and behind the opponent usually out of throw range. This is usually safe for you because by the time they land, you are out of the ducking animation and out of throw range.
• One hilarious anti-air is Cross Counter. Recommended to use rarely, say once every 50 games, just so its fresh each time. Use only when feeling psychic. For even more hilarity use EX Punch and Cross secret move against parry fiends. If things go your way, they will parry the punch and put out their own attack which will set off the EX Cross Counter that comes after the punch. Its an extremely rare move to see and may suprise them. Use against friends.
• Note that early j.MP beats many moves and is a great Air-to-Air. You can follow up by landing, ducking XX SA3 to hit them as they are falling for a reset. I wouldn't use this excessively, its easy for a good player to parry.

Midscreen Dash Crossups

These crossups are done after landing an EX Machine Gun Blow/c.HK x MK Ducking Upper midscreen and the opponent quickstands.

Character	Dash x3	Dash x2, HK Ducking	Dash x2, Jump Forward	Dash, Step Forward, Jump Forward	HK Ducking, High Jump Forward	HK Ducking, Dash, HK Ducking
Chun-Li			O	O	O
Yun	O	O	O	O	O
Ken			O	O	O
Makoto			O	O	O
Dudley	O	O		O	O
Yang	O	O	O	O	O
Akuma			O	O	O
Urien			O	O	O
Ryu			O	O	O
Oro			O	O
Elena	O	O	O	O	O
Ibuki	O	O	O	O	O
Necro	O	O	O	O	O	O
Alex					O
Remy				O	O
Q				O	O
Twelve	O	O	O	O	O	O
Hugo					O	O
Sean			O	O	O

Meaty Rose Setups

These are all done in the corner after getting a knockdown with the indicated moves and the opponent doesn't quickstand. After the opponent's hitting the ground animation is complete, whiff the moves listed then throw a rose. Immediately means to throw the rose with no whiffed moves beforehand.

Character	Rocket Uppercut (SAI)	Corkscrew Blow (SAIII)	Ducking Upper	Jet Uppercut
Chun-Li	Stomach Blow -> HP	LP	HP	Liver Blow
Yun	Stomach Blow	Immediately	Step Forward	Impossible
Ken	Stomach Blow -> MP	LP	LP	Immediately
Makoto	Stomach Blow -> HP	HP	Stomach Blow	Step Forward
Dudley	Liver Blow	Immediately	LP	Immediately
Yang	Stomach Blow	Immediately	Step Forward	Impossible
Akuma	Stomach Blow -> MP	LP	LP	Immediately
Urien	Step Straight -> Step Forward	Stomach Blow	Liver Blow	Step Forward
Ryu	Stomach Blow -> MP	LP	LP	Immediately
Oro	Stomach Blow -> LP	Step Forward	Liver Blow	Step Forward
Elena	HP	Step Forward	LP	Immediately
Ibuki	Stomach Blow -> Step Forward	Immediately	Liver Blow	Step Forward
Necro	Stomach Blow	Immediately	Liver Blow	Step Forward
Alex	Step Straight	LP	Liver Blow	Immediately
Remy	HP	LP	LP	Immediately
Q	Stomach Blow	Liver Blow	LP	Immediately
Twelve	Stomach Blow	Impossible	LP	Immediately
Hugo	Stomach Blow	Step Forward	Liver Blow	Step Forward
Sean	Stomach Blow -> MP	LP	LP	Immediately