Additional Topic: Upping Your Machine Gun Upper For Multi-Hitting Success (AKA How to Hyperfist from Optimal Cross Ups Like A Jamaican Rock Star)
As mentioned in the post immediately previous, comboing into a Hyperfist from the most ambiguous crossup kick possible requires a slightly different (and arguably unorthodox) timing. Specifically, you want to be placing that jump medium kick right above the center of the opponent’s head area as they rise, then immediately doing either a low Strong or low Fierce punch for the second hit before releasing the fully charged Hyperfist/Machine Gun Punch as a buffered hit. What makes this combo particularly challenging is the pacing involved. Most times, players want to get that cross up hit as deep as possible, so that they can land into a low attack while continuing to build the charge they need for a special. They mistakenly assume that they have to hold off on the initial jump kick until later than is actually necessary in order to be able to both combo their second normal attack and reach the full charge needed for the buffered special.
However, this is not at all necessary for Dee Jay’s stronger crouching punches because these have enough animation frames and late cancelling frames that you can throw a relatively high medium kick, immediately do a low Strong or Fierce, and then still buffer into that fully charged special successfully. Put another way, rather than building most of your charge by performing your cross up late, you instead build a large amount of the charge during the follow-up normal attack. This runs counter to the way most people do charge combos because the majority of players want to build that charge early and then immediately do their follow-up normal into an immediate buffered special such as the Hyperfist. It also explains why, during the entire course of USF4’s run, NO ONE to my knowledge was doing a cross up attack with Dee Jay into his heavier crouching attacks, instead choosing to land into a string of weaker attacks to build sufficient charge. Not only was this method horribly inefficient, it also tended to be much less successful since a late attack is more likely to hit the opponent on the back and therefore is easier to see as a cross up hit and block accordingly.
So, to correct this problem, you really have to get into the
habit of changing the rhythm of your hits to achieve the highest cross up
success possible. In addition, because of the different number of frames
associated with Dee Jay’s low Strong and low Fierce attacks, they actually
require slightly different timings to get that optimized cross up combo. Below
is a quick summary of the method I use for each:
Cross Up Into Low Strong and Fierce Hyperfist
1) Begin charging a version of Down during a jump forward and then start with an initial jump medium kick that aims to strike right above the center of the opponent’s head as they are rising. And I do mean right in the middle of it to make it as ambiguous as possible. For a good demonstration of this, try getting this specific cross up timing on a character like Decapre. Because of the wonky hurt boxes on that character, late cross up hits are more difficult to get on her as well as to combo into further additional hits. In contrast, when you throw that medium kick at the optimal height and timing, you will regularly get that ambiguous cross up hit, not to mention land much closer to her after the cross up (thereby maximizing the chances of further hits afterwards). Note: you actually have to learn to use this jump kick timing against all opponents; it’s just that when performing it on Decapre, it is much more obvious where and when you need to do this attack for it to be optimally successful.
2) IMMEDIATELY after you register the medium kick hitting successfully, hold straight down and press the button for a low Strong punch. Yes, right after the first hit connects, almost like chain combo rhythm. This will feel weird at first because your first instinct is to hold off on that punch in order to build the necessary charge for the follow-up special. But that won’t work because the higher ambiguous hit of your initial medium kick necessitates you do the follow-up attack super early in order for it to be unblocked and continue the combo properly.
3) Now comes perhaps the trickiest part. After doing the Strong punch from a Down position, either roll pause from Down to Down/Back or ride the gate of the stick from the Down direction to to the UP position holding that Up position briefly before before pressing Fierce punch to get the successfully buffered Hyperfist. It is a very specific and awkward timing to accomplish all of this effectively, but it is also the most consistent method for landing this combo I have found to date (though you are free to come up with others). The reason for using this particular buffer input method is to train you to hold off on that last input slightly for the buffered special. Why is this necessary? Because you may have to finish building charge for that special to come out (which, at this point, we haven't necessarily done yet). Don’t forget: we purposely threw our first two hits super early in order to maximize the ambiguity on our cross up attack, but we still have to build the full charge elsewhere in the sequence before we can unleash our final special attack. Luckily, Dee Jay’s low Strong has lots of animation frames (as well as late bufferable frames) which means we can build that last bit of additional charge while the Strong punch animates, then cancel into the damaging Hyperfist during the later frames of that normal. Stated simply: a large amount of the charge is built up during the animation of the second hit as well as during the initial jump in.
FINAL NOTE: After performing the UP and relevant button inputs for
the Hyperfist, get into the habit of immediately moving the stick to the Down/Back direction during the Hyperfist's animation. This will allow you to build charge for a follow-up Super
and Ultra 1 (if the initial combo connects) or to prepare a defensive Upkick
afterwards (if the cross up attempt was blocked).
Cross Up Into Low Fierce and EX Hyperfist (or EX Upkicks)
1) The first attack of this sequence is exactly the same as for the combo above; namely, a perfectly placed/timed hit right at the center of the opponent’s head while charging a version of Down. If you figured out how to do this for the above combo into Strong punch, it operates exactly the same for the version using the Fierce.
2) Next, immediately do the low Fierce punch after the initial jump kick connects. In contrast to the above combo where step 3 was the most difficult, step 2 is the hardest for the Fierce version of this combo. This is because the Fierce Punch takes more frames to reach hitting status than does the low Strong, so you really need to be super quick and tight to score it as an unblocked hit after the unblocked jump kick. What makes it even more challenging is that a blocked low Fierce can be punished by many fighters, so you have to get really adept at confirming that first cross up hit as unblocked and then instantly doing the Fierce punch as a second hit follow-up. Again, it helps to visualize these first two hits as a rapid chain combo rhythm to land them successfully. Furthermore. I have also developed the mental trick of pretending that the second hit with the Fierce is striking as an air hit rather than a ground one; reason being, I have a tendency to want to wait until Dee Jay is fully grounded before doing that second hit (which, of course, is too late to use the Fierce in the combo). Note that you are definitely on the ground before the low Fierce comes out – this is just a way to mentally train yourself to hit that button extra early in order to get that elusive second damaging hit of your combo.
3) Once you get the first two steps down consistently, things actually get much easier. This is because the low Fierce has more animation frames and hit stun which makes it easier to reach full charge while this normal animates. The final buffered special tends to be easier for this reason. That said, rather than the above method for the last input, I generally forego the straight UP method and instead do a backwards tiger knee motion (quarter circle back and then Up/Back) before hitting the appropriate attack buttons for the EX special. I do this because the cancel from the low Fierce into a special happens within a small number of frames so you have to be pretty exact with it. The tiger knee back method is useful in setting up that timing consistently. Just be sure to do that full circular motion slightly after the low Fierce connects to find that sweet spot for cancelling into a special. It’s not nearly as difficult as you think once you practice it a bit.
FINAL NOTE: Immediately after a backwards tiger knee input
into EX Hyperfist, start charging Down/Back again for either a EX Dread Kick,
Upkicks, or Ultra 2 as your follow up hits. Charging down/back also gets you
ready for a defensive Upkick should the opponent try to pressure you after a
blocked cross up attempt.
FINAL SUMMARY
On paper, none of these combo sequences seems difficult to do, but you will be surprised how challenging they can be when you are used to a completely different method of doing jump in charge combos. Still, they are entirely possible to get consistently with just a little bit of practice, and they really make your cross up combo game much more potent once you do so (in combination with the proper timing and placement of the cross up which I explain here). In particular, the beauty of these combo timings is that they will work equally well whether they land in the front or the back, thus taking full advantage of that high ambiguous jump in hit for maximum damage potential. So it’s definitely worth getting them down to take your cross up game to the next level.
