It’s happened to all of us… You’re facing a Dee Jay player in Street Fighter 6, the round begins, a couple of in-game seconds go by. You know exactly what’s coming — raw Drive Rush.
As far as Drive Rushes go, Dee Jay has one of, if not, the best one in the entire game, and it can be very difficult to stop him once he gets going — even if you’re ready for it. With all of that having been said, and based on the image above, how do you think this interaction with Dee Jay and Kimberly is going to turn out?
This very brief clip from Zykles__ on X (formerly Twitter) shines a spotlight on a pain that many of us are all too familiar with. The footage literally might be the shortest ever that we’ve featured in a story here on EventHubs, but within just one in-real-life second, so much is said.
In this interaction, Zykles__ ‘s Kimberly is taking on a Dee Jay player online. We can see that the Kimberly player is backing up and creating space in this scenario, and this is being done as a preemptive strategy to, naturally, anticipate a raw Drive Rush.
As the Kim player expects, Dee Jay fires off a swift Drive Rush, and Kim answers it with one of her faster, longer-reaching normals in order to try and stop him in his tracks. One might think that because of the distance between them and a faster normal being chosen on Kim’s end that the Drive Rush check would work here. But nope.
Dee Jay cancels the Drive Rush into one of HIS faster, better normals and completely beats out Kim’s button. A sad sight to see that we have all undoubtedly been on the receiving end of by now.
Now, this story wasn’t written just to say “DRIVE RUSH BAD!!” Instead, let’s discuss a few things surrounding this situation.
For starters, the Kimberly player absolutely had the right idea. From this range, with this timing, they very well could have beaten Dee Jay out had Dee Jay went for a heavier button.
However, one thing I’ve been seeing lately from top tier characters with great raw Drive Rushes is essentially a counter play to Drive Rush checks in neutral. Characters like Dee Jay, Ken, and Luke are able to close the gap quickly from a range and with a timing that those of us who have been practicing stopping raw Drive Rush know typically works at successfully stopping them.
Instead of going for a medium or heavy button to get a bigger confirm and combo, they’re opting to stick out a standing jab, which generally has solid range and because of the speed of the normal, has the ability to beat out a lot of the Drive Rush checks that people are currently using.
Because Dee Jay went for a jab here, Kimberly essentially had to toss out her counter even earlier if she wanted a chance at stopping him, and even if she had, I think Dee Jay still might have had a chance at winning out in this interaction. These are the kinds of clips that have players raging about the Drive Rush mechanic, but it’s worth mentioning that not everyone on the roster has this good of a Drive Rush.
Clips like this are also why I believe Capcom should target nerfing specific character Drive Rushes first before making sweeping changes to the mechanic as a whole, and if you want to know more about this from me on the subject, I’ve written a whole article about it.
— NS | Zykles @ Capital City Clash (@Zykles__) January 3, 2024
This game continues to evolve in very interesting ways as players are forced to lab and deal with difficult situations due to the game’s first actual balance patch still having not been announced. Capcom Cup is set to take place next month, however, and fans have an inkling that the update may be announced at the event, so hopefully we see Capcom pull back some of these better raw Drive Rushes when the balance patch finally comes.