Saw this tweet and wanted to reply to UltraDavid
https://twitter.com/ultradavid/status/522561341358235648
Let me preface that I stopped playing at SF4AE which I think I stopping playing around the time AE2012 was announced
In Super, Dudley only had explosive damage and dizzy to carry him. His normals sucked, he would die horribly to far reaching lows like Ryu crMK, Chun crMK, Guile crMK. He has like nothing more to do that the basic for wakeup. His oki game was useless outside the corner, crMK sweep was pretty slow. So he just died to Cammy, Ibuki, Fei, Akuma, Sakura, Chun, Guile, Ryu, etc.
In AE, they added pushback on sHK so he lost CH sHK links, they made sHK xx duck worse on block (it was really safe in Super), sped up crMK and gave EX Duck (which added more to his damage and dizzy output along with punishing more moves that LP/MP didn't reach). I think some things had extended hitboxes and something changed with Jet Upper making antiair trades with it something you want to do.
In AE2012, I think this is where he gained FA Forward Dash better on block, improve his fMP which actually hit low enough to counterpoke some crouching normals and did enough on CH to link into sHP, I think something changed about sHK that was good, LP MGB was safe on block. Best thing was nerfs to everyone else.
USF4 nerfed a lot of problematic characters IIRC. He got improvements but the best thing to happen was nerfs to everyone else.
Dudley was not solid. He suffered in the safe jump, cross up nature of SF4's system since he wanted to do low/throw/overhead which means just backdash vs Dudley, luckily it wasn't hard to corner carry with him where he could shine. If you liked the way Dudley played, you were better of with Sakura, she did everything + more. Or Cody, he had way more + on block normals making his frame traps game scary and better normals for neutral (crLK, sMK, fHK). Playing opponents that aren't scared to push buttons (like Xian) makes Dudley's life hell since fMK is stubby and his other great + on block moves (sMP and sLP) whiff on crouchers. crMK sucked for a while as a poke to challenge other crouching lows.
Dudley also has weird issues like Chun/Rose reelback making fHK sHK on wakeup whiff if done too quickly, crLK crLP sHK whiffing on Rog's wakeup. fMK sMP sHK whiffing on some standing characters forcing the fMK crMP sHK (2 1f links). And characters falling out of Thunderbolt on hit.
Dudley's damage and dizzy always keeps him in a match. His target combos give some easy safe blockstrings. Not sure if they fixed Short Swing Blow in USF4 but it's a terrible move if you don't EX it. He makes great meter.
tl;dr Smug is a strong and smart player, he is beating the players not Dudley IMO. Dudley does suck less than he did in previous versions because he was bottom 10 easily in SSF4 and SF4AE. If he wasn't bottom 10 in AE, then all his bad matchups were the ones getting played.
Note: I probably screwed up which patch the changes happened in but if you look at them all, you'll see he gained a lot since Super.
