Yea stick might be the way to go for DJ if you want to master his wavedash. I am more adept on pad now since I've been using it longer, but I can see stick being easier in the long run. Compared to Soul Cal, playing Tekken is quite strenuous on your fingers due to the execution. I think you actually need to warm up more on pad, as opposed to stick since your fingers will be quite immobile initially compared to your wrist which doesn't require as much coordination.
If I'm on point, I can get some pseudo-bobbing with DJ, but I don't get that too often cuz I like playing a whole buncha chars. and by the time I come back to DJ my execution has gone to crap lol. His movement is definitely more important now thanks to his nerfs. He doesn't really have any abuseable lag tactics I can think of now compared to DR. His HS nerf made his low game really weak so even if they eat HS4 it's not that scary anymore. Try playing online with etiquette (no throws) and if you don't have top notch execution + movement, you'll see what I mean. He's reduced to pokes and whiff baiting which is a lot more work compared to other chars.
Also, unless you play this game a bunch you probably won't be wavedashing like a pro anytime soon. That is impressive XLcowboy can do it.
If you want an easy execution + top char, try Eddy. He can get complicated tho if you want to master him, but his risk/reward initially is really good. He has a lot of evasive or useful moves like b2, d/b1+2, u/f4, d+3+4 (goes into RLX stance) so that'll hurt people who like to be aggressive. And if they're passive, you can do some easy 50/50s against them to make them guess. Solid all around IMO. You can probably start by just creating some 50/50s out of his movelist and do some strings out of his movelist and you'll destroy people who don't know him. You're prob. also gonna piss a lot of people off in the process thanks to his button-mashing stigma haha. I know it irked me initially when I didn't know him.
I actually learned DR mostly from playing online so while lag sucks, you can still filter out the gold from the grime. I dunno, for me I'd rather play a laggy opponent than the AI b/c I feel it's more fun to have another human behind the opponent even if it is ultra laggy. At least you can both curse at Namco together lol. And when I go offline, I can just filter out what doesn't work and learn from there. It's obviously not ideal training, but I'm not rushing to master any technique or character and just enjoying the learning process.
