Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike/Dudley/2021/Introduction

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Introduction

Dudley is an English gentleman boxer who despises dirty fighting and seeks opponents who offer a good, clean match. He is never seen without his beloved blue boxing gloves even while driving, drinking tea, and reading the newpaper. His first appearance was Street Fighter III: New Generation.

Dudley is an incredibly powerful rushdown character, sporting some of the best offense and likely the best mixups in the game, with tons of damage to back it up. He's got an unreactably fast overhead in 6HK, which links into his SAI and SAIII for knockdowns and damage, mixed with a low confirm in 2LK that leads to the same. All of it leads into more offense, which is easily sustained with Dudley's variety of plus normals and Target Combos. This is further accentuated by Ducking (41236K) and Short Swing Blow (63214K), evasive moves that let Dudley dodge attacks and punish.

One of his most attractive features however is his sheer damage output. Dudley has long and flashy juggles from his 2HK launcher and EX Machine Gun Blow (41236PP) that do immense damage. While they are difficult and character specific, they allow Dudley to turn his parries into some of the highest damage in the game with Light Machine Gun Blow loops and his infamous 2HK sweep loops.

This all comes with a few tough issues however. Dudley's hardest problem is his lack of a strong low poke. Many of the top tiers have 2MK normals that cancel into specials and supers while retaining safety, but Dudley lacks one of these or a solid answer to them. He's also quite wide, leaving him vulnerable to high damage combos and confirms. He also struggles to deal with rushdown himself, with 2LP being fast but no reward, and only EX Jet Upper (623PP) being invincible.

Dudley is a high execution rushdown, and while properly mastering his combos and confirms may take some time in training mode, he rewards you with some of the best okizeme and offense 3S has to offer, and the flashiest combos to flex execution with.

Super Arts

SA1: Rocket Uppercut

One of Dudley's two best supers, requires more meter in exchange for more damage. Deals 52 damage to a standing Ken. Favored by specific players, or for specific matchups (gives additional range on the dart shot super link vs Makoto and twins, can be used for burst damage vs characters with low health or who are hard to hit). Opponents can fall out when it's used as a juggle ender midscreen, make sure not to hit them when they're too close or too high up. For example play, Fujiwara is a strong player who nearly always plays SA1.

SA2: Rolling Thunder

Deals 58 damage to a standing Ken. Can be mashed for extra hits, up to 8 total. It's the least popular option as it doesnt combo after juggles, doesn't combo after dart shot (6HK), and only has 1 large stock. Can be used in a similar manner to Ken's SA3.

SA3: Corkscrew Blow

Easiest to use super. Deals 38 damage to a standing Ken. It has 3 stocks and a significantly shorter bar, so you'll have access to super in many more situations. Has no issues with the opponent dropping out if they're hit while airborne; if you do miss one or two hits, it won't significantly impact the oki you get afterwards. LP corkscrew blow also deals an obnoxious amount of pushback on block, making it difficult to punish for many characters.

Strengths Weaknesses
  • Great walk speed, with a fast and low jump to back it up.
  • High damage and stun juggle combos allow for threatening offense AND defense.
  • Awesome high-low mixups, insane frame data to enable them, insane damage to discourage the opponent from fighting back vs high/low/throw.
  • A lot of strong anti-airs to work with, and great ways to deal with air parry.
  • Lacks pokes with enough risk-reward to directly compete with many of the game's best crouching pokes.
  • Slow lows outside of 2LK, which is only threatening near point blank via his 2LK > 2LK confirm.
  • No oki off of throws midscreen, in exchange for very good corner carry.