Additional Topic: Further Combo Explorations of the Dee Jay Low Fierce (AKA How to Make A Shit Normal Much More Normal and Much Less Shitty)
As mentioned elsewhere, Dee Jay players have traditionally been using less than optimal combos when going for cross ups, often involving multiple weak attacks which only add additional damage scaling to your progressively weaker combos. My proposed solution to this issue was to use Hyperfist combos at all times for cross ups since they always use a Down charge which doesn’t get screwed up depending on whether you land in the front or back. For the second hit, I initially recommended using a low Short kick into a Fierce Hyperfist/Machine Gun Upper before realizing that you could instead substitute a low Strong Punch for the Short to get a bit more damage (as described here). However, as it turns out, you also often have the option of using a crouch Fierce as your second hit before a special. This is a great thing since it gives the low Fierce an additional use beyond combos after a focus crumple.
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| Yes. THIS Move has a use!!! |
That said, comboing with the Fierce after a cross up does come with a few caveats, as follows:
a) To cancel a crouch Fierce into a special attack, you have to press the button for the Fierce right after the connecting cross up medium kick, then wait a brief moment before buffering the special. This is necessary since the cancelling frame for the Fierce occurs a little after the initiation of it. Not a big deal, but it does take a little bit of practice to get the timing for it down consistently (as partially explained in this earlier post).
b) Cancels into specials from the Fierce should be done on standing opponents as the follow-up special often whiffs on crouching opponents. This is not as much of an issue as you would think since an experienced opponent will generally be more concerned with a stand block to the left or right as opposed to blocking low (given that an incorrect block low will always lead to a successful hit with the jumping medium kick whether they low block to the left or right). The standard practice here is to watch carefully as to whether the medium kick connects while the opponent is standing or crouching. If it connects while they are standing, feel free to follow up with the Fierce. If it is while crouching, substitute the low Strong punch instead. Once again, it takes a bit of practice to be able to make this hit confirm in the instant that you need it, but it is entirely possible if you train yourself to do so.
c) Keep in mind that some characters may be able to hit you during your recovery from a blocked Fierce so, yes, it really pays to be able to hit confirm your combo at the earliest possible moment (i.e., after the initial jump medium kick) in order to choose the proper follow-up accordingly.
d) Unlike cross up combos with the duck Strong, combos into the Fierce tend to push the opponent out a lot more on hit, meaning only certain special follow-ups are possible depending on the nature of the opponent’s hurt boxes relative to the Fierce hit. Many combos, in fact, are incredibly inconsistent depending on where you land and perform the Fierce relative to your opponent’s position. Furthermore, some opponents cannot even be hit with a follow-up cancel into a special at all (though the low Fierce itself will always connect). This makes cross up combos from the Fierce a lot more character-specific and, as a result, you have to possess a thorough knowledge of which combos actually work on which opponents so that you don’t accidentally do a combo that doesn’t connect properly (or, worse yet, leaves you open). To make this process of learning easier, though, I have added yet another spreadsheet/PDF below to give you a good idea of which combos work most consistently against which opponents . . . AND a short video demonstrating many of these cross up Fierce possibilities. Up to you whether you wish to take advantage of them or not.
As you can see, that’s a lot of caveats for using the Fierce as the second hit in a cross up combo, which might lead you to question whether to ever use this version of a cross up combo at all. There are three reasons I can think for why you should at least consider learning these combo variations, however:
- One, having the canceling frames of the Fierce a little later in its animation allows you to throw a very high cross up hit, instantly do the follow-up Fierce button press, but then still have a little time to reach full charge for the Upper. A high cross up hit is much more advantageous because it is far more ambiguous and therefore harder for the opponent to block properly (a high cross up hit is also necessary in order to do a decent cross up Fierce combo at all on some opponents such as Blanka and Vega/Claw).
- Secondly, the low Fierce does slightly more damage than the low Strong (90 compared to 80) so, in addition to being more ambiguous, you also get more damage for landing these combos (several of them leading to 400 damage or more in W mode alone).
- Third, and perhaps most importantly, the low Fierce does a TON of stun (200), so an optimized cross up combos using it will easily drain up to half of the opponent’s stun meter with a single series of unblocked hits. If you then manage to get a second cross up combo after this, the opponent will often be dizzied or very close to it immediately afterwards. In fact, alter learning to do these cross up Fierce combos, my ability to dizzy with Dee Jay went up by over 50 per cent. See the end of the post on optimized cross ups for some video examples of this.
In short, these additional combo possibilities for the low Fierce tend to be situation-specific and therefore require a lot more Dee Jay knowledge to be used effectively. Nevertheless, if you manage to do so, you will open up a wealth of new possibilities for the Jamaican street fighter with just a little extra work. As always, the more you know, the more you WIN.