Dan’s limitations are as difficult to overcome as they are obvious. Despite gaining significant frame advantage from his fireball, his normal move arrangement denies him any natural Gadoken loop flexibility. Nearly every deviation requires meticulous character-specific setups. In a nutshell, Dan sucks at combos – adjust your expectations accordingly.

0:11 After trading a lvl3 Focus Attack with Rufus’ j.DF+MK divekick, Dan’s HK Airborne Dankukyaku connects once to send Rufus into knockdown state and again to raise the juggle count to one. Dan’s Hissho Buraiken super has zero juggle potential for the first hit, one for the second hit, two for the third hit, and onward incrementally with each successive hit. Fortunately he manages to reach the third hit before Rufus falls through.

0:23 Dan’s close s.MP causes abnormally lengthy hit stun at 26 frames, which outlasts hard attack hit stun of 21-22 frames. From certain ranges, Dan’s s.MP xx MK Dankukyaku crosses over crouching C.Viper, Sakura, and Vega – and connects despite whiffing the first kick, due to extended s.MP hit stun. The hard part is finding that range during a midscreen combo, since it looks much cooler outside the corner. The trick is to delay the FADC slightly, allowing Sakura to start reeling backward before trying to catch up to her. Otherwise the first few frames of Dan’s dash go to waste, and his walk speed is too slow to make up that lost ground.

0:30 Dan’s EX Gadoken generates +6 frame advantage and his close s.MP connects on the 6th frame, making them a perfect match. Few characters permit two s.MP xx EX Gadoken loops in a row, and even fewer after a point-blank EX Gadoken starter. Dan’s c.MK becomes active on the 7th frame, so it calls for additional frame advantage from the preceding EX Gadoken. The dummy character must lean back far enough during s.MP hit stun to delay EX Gadoken impact by at least 1 frame to yield +7 frame advantage. Only Vega and Sakura satisfy all of these conditions. This combo causes 495 damage and 660 stun.

0:37 Dan can’t loop s.MP xx Gadoken twice on standing Abel, but c.MP causes less pushback in this scenario – while inflicting more damage than s.MP would. Following the lvl2 Focus Attack, c.MP xx LP Gadoken, c.LK xx LP Koryuken catches Abel leaning into the uppercut very late, enabling the sluggish EX Gadoken followup. This combo deals 440 damage and 650 stun.

0:47 Normally counterhit only alters the first hit of EX Gadoken, raising damage and hit stun. The second hit automatically overrides any residual hit stun with its own standard interval, so the counterhit frame advantage bonus is essentially negated. Counterhit or not, Dan still ends up with +6 frame advantage from EX Gadoken. This setup is designed to bypass that barrier. On its first active frame, Dan’s EX Gadoken overlaps Chun Li and her LP Kikoken. SF4 always resolves fireball interactions before dealing with character hitboxes, stripping away the first hit of EX Gadoken before it touches Chun Li. Meanwhile, she whiffs c.MK to create a crouching counterhit setup for the second hit of EX Gadoken – boosting it to +8 frame advantage, which is enough to link s.HP xx HP Gadoken and so on. The rest is fairly straightforward, given that Chun Li’s crouching hitbox is notorious for meaty fireball antics. Unfortunately, Dan just barely misses building enough meter to FADC another Gadoken, so the combo ends somewhat abruptly at 437 damage and 678 stun.

0:58 Dan musters exactly 750 stun using only four moves to dizzy Seth. It costs 75% meter, leaving only one bar for c.HP xx EX Gadoken, Shissho Buraiken. The longer the fireball travels before connecting, the more frame advantage it provides. Think of it as a mid-combo meaty setup. Dan’s c.HP must connect from as far away as possible to widen the gap. Seth helps by wobbling back and forth during his dizzy animation, but there’s only a few frames where he tilts forward far enough to enable the link. Generally i dislike taunting in combo videos, but in this case there was too much time to kill while waiting for Seth to lean all the way forward. This combo totals 649 damage, which may be Dan’s maximum against Seth.

1:13 Honda’s c.HK rotates away from his usual crouching spot, creating a convenient meaty setup for LP Gadoken. Dan gains enough time to walk forward and link c.MP xx EX Gadoken. Honda’s crouching stance is so wide that each EX Gadoken hits once at point blank range, which is important for preserving startup speed, and once at deep meaty range, which generates a substantial frame advantage bonus. With proper spacing, Dan can loop nonstop EX Gadokens and link his ultra at will. This combo yields 569 damage and 460 stun.

1:24 Dan’s LP Gadoken gives +4 frame advantage by default and +6 on counterhit. Sakura creates a crouching counterhit setup with minimal pushback by whiffing c.LK, allowing Dan to link s.MP directly. The full combo contains a mixture of LP, HP, and EX Gadokens, but all three normal versions carry identical damage and stun values. Excluding the post-KO fireball, this combo inflicts 449 damage and 585 stun.

This is a tool-assisted combo video recorded with two ASCII PAD V Pro programmable controllers. Absolutely no cheats, hacks, or game-altering devices were used in the making of.