Drive-rushing to conclusions (AKA follow updates for your favourite fighting game)

16 May 2024 • Andy Corrigan

I am a fucking idiot. That fact won’t be too surprising for anyone who knows me personally, but I’m not talking about my deficiencies as a human being - I’m talking about me playing Street Fighter 6.

For weeks and months, I’ve been hard-stuck in Platinum rank, my progress stagnant and, at times, even regressing.

I looked long and hard at my replays and decided I needed to learn new tech to help me cash out better in clutch situations.

Until this point, I hadn’t bothered adding Drive Rush to my game. It wasn’t that I didn’t use Drive Rush at all, but I had no Drive Rush combo, and I didn’t really use it to pressure except for in Oki. Even then, I used the mechanic sparingly, gun-shy because I’d eaten one too many wake-up Supers.

So, looking for ways to improve, I decided it was time to finally add Drive Rush to my game and learn a combo that uses it.

Taking inspiration from one of Juri’s Combo Trials, I experimented to adapt and optimise it, adding new lead-ins and follow-ups. After a night of experimentation, I landed on something I can execute consistently and ends in a Level 3 Super for 50% damage. Hell, it’ll hurt the opponent even more if I have Critical Art available.

The full combo does need full meter and leaves me in burnout, but I found ways to lead into and from a heap of different things in the process. The upside is I've got a big clutch combo that can end a round, and I've got branching options for a range of situations.

And then I hit a snag.

I’d learned this Drive Rush combo on a leverless controller but had decided to move back to arcade stick.

On leverless, double-tapping forward to trigger Drive Rush on hit-confirm was easy. No matter my side of the screen, just a quick double-tap of the left or right buttons would start the run.

With stick, I could trigger it reliably from the left side almost every time. From the right, however, I had a 50-60% success rate, even less in an actual match when it counted. The more I dropped it, the harder it became.

This form went on for well over a week, costing me wins and pride, especially at locals.

Aaand then I realised, by accident, that double-tapping forward was only one method to trigger Drive Rush after hit confirm. The other, much easier way to trigger it was to press the parry button on hit instead.

I wanted to punch myself in the face. I can’t even begin to tell you how many matches I lost because of that right-hand side execution, how many whiffed throws I failed to capitalise on by landing just one hit instead of the 13-14 I should have (Level 3 Super included).

After consulting with fighting game friends at locals, I could at least rationalise why I missed this much easier and more reliable option: Street Fighter 6 didn’t launch with it. Capcom patched it in shortly after release.

I had likely not paid attention to news of the update or disregarded it as not for me. Why? I can only guess! I was still working on my fundamentals in low-to-mid Gold rank and wasn’t quite confident enough to use Drive Rush at that stage, so maybe I just mentally filed it under ‘not yet’.

Do not what I do

So, let me use my stupidity for good as I impart some wisdom: Follow all the news for your favourite fighting game. Make note of gameplay changes regardless of where you’re at in your fighting game journey.

At worst, you’ll know how to use something when you’re ready to use it, and at best, it might be easier to use than you imagined.