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.
