Wanting to learn Raph

chakkdizzle

chakkdizzle

[08] Mercenary
This may not deserve it's own thread but I have been looking throughout the forum for info and there is so much spread out. I was wondering if anyone put together a guide on how to play Raph? Combos/strategy/useful strings and moves etc.

If anyone could help or point me in the right direction then that would be greatly appreciated.

Also I am new to SCV
 
I am definetely not the best raphael player here but i will do my best to give you some advice how he should be played.

You said that you are new to SCV so learning the basics like frames, "SC-language", punishment and so on should be your priority first.

Raphael combines speed and range which makes him a very unique character in the roster. Because of his long range moves it is possible to space your opponents out and punish their whiffs with 66B or 236B. He can also punish moves others cannot with his i12 6BB. This move has awesome range for such a fast move and allows some preparation mixups if you input 6B(B). After sidesteps he has very good moves too: mix up 22B (combos into 2A for a free throw/WR 3B mixup), 11K (catches steppers and is hard to react to that low attack) and 33k BE (combos into CE, 2B) for nice damage.

On the negative side his overall damage output is very low except you can land SE B which allows for some great combos even without meter or you start punishing moves with your CE. Many of his attacks are highs so TC and ducking can be your worst enemies, keep that in mind. His anti-step moves are also rather weak but if someone is very step-happy try to just throw them because raphael has really good throws. The main thing with raphael is not be to predictable with your powerful vertical attacks because if someone reads your 66B, 236B or 3B they just step it and punish you heavily for your mistake.

I hope that helps a bit
 
chakkdizzle said:
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Also I am new to SCV
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How new is "new"?? It is a little vague but we're here to help you out.

You'll see a lotta language about notation (ie 236B, 88A.. etc) and that imo is the first thing to understand the "lingo" of what people are trying to describe for moves.

Second, are you aware of the game system (ie 3D movement, high/mid/low attacks and how to block ?)

If you already know that, then understanding the basic concept of frames (advantage, disadvantage, unsafe, guarnateed,.. etc)

You dont need to be an expert on the above, but if you're aware of them it'll make reading a character-specific subforum much more painless.

and THEN... you should browse through the threads in this subforum. Some people learn visually, so try the video thread. Some people are more theoretical so check out the general chat. The combo thread can help break down inputs for combos you've seen or read about. If you wanna accelerate your learning check out the top 10 movelist to get a good idea of what set of core moves other Raph players have based their strat on.
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The good thing about Raph for beginners is that he has great reach for the speed, or great speed considering his reach depending on how you look at it.

http://8wayrun.com/threads/raphael-forum-directory.8775/ is probably the most helpful Raph-specific link.

http://8wayrun.com/forums/soulcalibur-tactics.4/ for overall soul calibur 5 mechanics. All of the stickies are very useful and may seem overwhelming at first.
 
WuHT said:
How new is "new"?? It is a little vague but we're here to help you out.

You'll see a lotta language about notation (ie 236B, 88A.. etc) and that imo is the first thing to understand the "lingo" of what people are trying to describe for moves.

Second, are you aware of the game system (ie 3D movement, high/mid/low attacks and how to block ?)

If you already know that, then understanding the basic concept of frames (advantage, disadvantage, unsafe, guarnateed,.. etc)

You dont need to be an expert on the above, but if you're aware of them it'll make reading a character-specific subforum much more painless.

and THEN... you should browse through the threads in this subforum. Some people learn visually, so try the video thread. Some people are more theoretical so check out the general chat. The combo thread can help break down inputs for combos you've seen or read about. If you wanna accelerate your learning check out the top 10 movelist to get a good idea of what set of core moves other Raph players have based their strat on.
----

The good thing about Raph for beginners is that he has great reach for the speed, or great speed considering his reach depending on how you look at it.

http://8wayrun.com/threads/raphael-forum-directory.8775/ is probably the most helpful Raph-specific link.

http://8wayrun.com/forums/soulcalibur-tactics.4/ for overall soul calibur 5 mechanics. All of the stickies are very useful and may seem overwhelming at first.
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Thanks for the reply! I guess I will search some more. I played Soulcalibur and SCIV a good amount and played many fighting games seriously but I am new to SCV. So I know the lingo at least and understand most mechanics except anything that is new to SCV. Is there any notable player perhaps that I should watch footage of?

Thanks again
 
Vice Hannyabal said:
I am definetely not the best raphael player here but i will do my best to give you some advice how he should be played.

You said that you are new to SCV so learning the basics like frames, "SC-language", punishment and so on should be your priority first.

Raphael combines speed and range which makes him a very unique character in the roster. Because of his long range moves it is possible to space your opponents out and punish their whiffs with 66B or 236B. He can also punish moves others cannot with his i12 6BB. This move has awesome range for such a fast move and allows some preparation mixups if you input 6B(B). After sidesteps he has very good moves too: mix up 22B (combos into 2A for a free throw/WR 3B mixup), 11K (catches steppers and is hard to react to that low attack) and 33k BE (combos into CE, 2B) for nice damage.

On the negative side his overall damage output is very low except you can land SE B which allows for some great combos even without meter or you start punishing moves with your CE. Many of his attacks are highs so TC and ducking can be your worst enemies, keep that in mind. His anti-step moves are also rather weak but if someone is very step-happy try to just throw them because raphael has really good throws. The main thing with raphael is not be to predictable with your powerful vertical attacks because if someone reads your 66B, 236B or 3B they just step it and punish you heavily for your mistake.

I hope that helps a bit
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Thanks alot. This was very helpful.
 
chakkdizzle said:
I played Soulcalibur and SCIV a good amount and played many fighting games seriously but I am new to SCV.
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Luckily Raph has changed minimally from SC4 to SC5 so the transition is going to be rather smooth
Is there any notable player perhaps that I should watch footage of?
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Normally i'll avoid name dropping, there are a few tournament matches in the thread, but i'll have to dig em up.
There is also a general 8wayrun media http://8wayrun.com/media/medias?filter=raphael link where u can use the character bubble cloud thingy and take a look there. Whether or not that they're examples of excellent Raph gameplay I can't comment on all of them heh.

Jimbonator said:
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this was a recent summerjam video check the link. If you have the time I suggest watching videos and applying whatever is beneficial to you and throwing out things that won't work in your circumstances
 
WuHT said:
Luckily Raph has changed minimally from SC4 to SC5 so the transition is going to be rather smooth

Normally i'll avoid name dropping, there are a few tournament matches in the thread, but i'll have to dig em up.
There is also a general 8wayrun media http://8wayrun.com/media/medias?filter=raphael link where u can use the character bubble cloud thingy and take a look there. Whether or not that they're examples of excellent Raph gameplay I can't comment on all of them heh.

this was a recent summerjam video check the link. If you have the time I suggest watching videos and applying whatever is beneficial to you and throwing out things that won't work in your circumstances
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A bit off topic but i didn't know that this character specific media existed. This is very helpful actually.

Thanks for that!
 
Now I know what a lot of you are sayin':
"I just figured out what I'm 'onna do with the rest of my days.
I'm 'onna get me an oversized 236B, gain forty CE's and be the next G.
" Well I got sour news for you, jack. It ain't that easy.
For instance, are you willing to make the commitment to wakin' up
at the crack a' noon, for deep-knee rock squats!?
Seven or eight at a time!? In a row?
How 'bout are you willing to make the commitment
to rock-hard tasty abs washer-board style?
Glistening in the sun. How 'bout are you willin' to make the commitment,
wakin' up, goin' okay, it's gig time, what stance am I gonna use?
Can't decide: Can't decide: Brain aneurysm!
 
Normally I don't try to to dissuade anyone from using whoever they want, but in the case of Raphael you really have to be familiar with frames for him to work for you. On top of that, the's also arguably the worst character in the game. Because of that, he may not be the best character to start out with.

I find that when you're in the character selection screen and you see the 'stats', the only one that is accurate IMO is 'ease of use'
 
I
CaptainHook said:
Normally I don't try to to dissuade anyone from using whoever they want, but in the case of Raphael you really have to be familiar with frames for him to work for you. On top of that, the's also arguably the worst character in the game. Because of that, he may not be the best character to start out with.

I find that when you're in the character selection screen and you see the 'stats', the only one that is accurate IMO is 'ease of use'
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I agree that frame knowledge is vital to play him effectivly because it prevents others from stepping your verticals or you can set up useful frametraps.

No offense here but why would you call raph the worst character in the game? He might not be viola or alpha but i can't see him beeing worse than other "low-tiers" like zwei, leixia, siegfried or xiba and all of them are viable contenders in my oppinion.
 
Vice Hannyabal said:
I



I agree that frame knowledge is vital to play him effectivly because it prevents others from stepping your verticals or you can set up useful frametraps.

No offense here but why would you call raph the worst character in the game? He might not be viola or alpha but i can't see him beeing worse than other "low-tiers" like zwei, leixia, siegfried or xiba and all of them are viable contenders in my oppinion.
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Well, his damage overall is pitiful, especially on his pokes, which you have to hit them a million times to win a round. He also classically suffers from lack of good step killers, and has 1 decent horizontal mid which is 3a. He has to take huge gambles on pitiful damage. 6B, often heralded has his holy grail, is a linear high with no damage so it makes little consequence that he can punish where others can't when he has to hit you 3x more than anyone else to win.

There are very few instances where SE can't be interrupted by everyone, except maybe on wake up which in that case it's fine for a solid safe mix up.

Zwei at least hurts with his single strikes, as well as having good combos, which raphael has very few of. Even Leixia beats Raph's damage by a large margin and that's saying a lot because her's isn't great either.

Sieg and Xiba on the other hand are just fine, like really, what's to complain about them.

Having said all that, even the worst character in this game is still workable to a degree, but you won't see Raph win any majors, ever.
 
CaptainHook said:
Having said all that, even the worst character in this game is still workable to a degree, but you won't see Raph win any majors, ever.
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There's lots of charas that haven't won majors. This is a poor argument.

And 33KB BE combo is like 80+ damage + wakes. It is his holy grail. Although 6BB BE is an i12 CH for 70 damage........... let that sink in a bit. Don't even bring the "But Bojack it'll get stepped or TC'ed or whatever 110% of the time cuz Raph is teh sux0rZZZs" shit up.
 
CaptainHook said:
Well, his damage overall is pitiful, especially on his pokes, which you have to hit them a million times to win a round. He also classically suffers from lack of good step killers, and has 1 decent horizontal mid which is 3a. He has to take huge gambles on pitiful damage. 6B, often heralded has his holy grail, is a linear high with no damage so it makes little consequence that he can punish where others can't when he has to hit you 3x more than anyone else to win.

There are very few instances where SE can't be interrupted by everyone, except maybe on wake up which in that case it's fine for a solid safe mix up.

Zwei at least hurts with his single strikes, as well as having good combos, which raphael has very few of. Even Leixia beats Raph's damage by a large margin and that's saying a lot because her's isn't great either.

Sieg and Xiba on the other hand are just fine, like really, what's to complain about them.

Having said all that, even the worst character in this game is still workable to a degree, but you won't see Raph win any majors, ever.
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I didn't compain about these characters. They are just on par with raph in my oppinion with some "balanced characters" like asta, aeon or yoshi to name a few examples are just slightly better.

Like bojack said 6BB and 33k BE are awesome moves every raph player has to use!
 
CaptainHook said:
Well, his damage overall is pitiful, especially on his pokes, which you have to hit them a million times to win a round. He also classically suffers from lack of good step killers, and has 1 decent horizontal mid which is 3a. He has to take huge gambles on pitiful damage. 6B, often heralded has his holy grail, is a linear high with no damage so it makes little consequence that he can punish where others can't when he has to hit you 3x more than anyone else to win.
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Much of what you said in this paragraph is inaccurate. He has his excellent 2A, 22A, 11K, 4K and other step discouraging moves. Yes, 6BB is 16 dmg but he is one of the few who can punish at i12 with that much range. Two taps to the head shouldn't do very much damage at such a fast speed anyway. Pokes are just part of his style. Try to draw whiffs and Raph will land bigger damage.

Keep in mind that he is a fencer, and his lack of step killers is natural. Why not maximize his strengths of range, mobility, block/whiff punishment (he can punish almost anything), and speed-to-range ratio? You can minimize his weakness to step and TC by playing defensive, zoning, and in general, moving properly. As long as you have the life lead, you don't need to kill step. Move with them, backpedaling to create elements of surprise and openings to strike.

Zwei at least hurts with his single strikes, as well as having good combos, which raphael has very few of. Even Leixia beats Raph's damage by a large margin and that's saying a lot because her's isn't great either.

Sieg and Xiba on the other hand are just fine, like really, what's to complain about them.
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Zwei is in fact one of Raph's best matchups. Sure he has combos but Raph's speed, range, i12 6BB which punishes 90% of Zwei's moves, and overall superior punishment forces him to respect Raph. Raph controls space significantly more than he does. Leixia is not a bad matchup either as long as you are familiar with her moves.

Sieg and Xiba are also good matchups for Raph.
 
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At this point there's no point in going any further. We're just going to have to agree to disagree.

^I wasn't talking about specific match-ups as much as I was overall tiers.
 
To Chakdizzle: You can read other's inputs in this thread but dont let them shoehorn how you "shouldn't" experiment with Raph.

The whole point of overall tiers and Raph being on the lower spectrum luckily probably wouldn't apply to you anyways, as they're for the hypothetical ultra competitive perspective. Though having fun can go hand-in-hand with winning, we're here to help you learn Raph to give u a leg up on your opponents, rather than gripe about how poor Raph is at the highest level of competitive play (captain hook, you are welcome to debate on those merits but just in another thread that we have)
 
Real_Bojack said:
By handful you mean "moves that win for me" right? Please define what makes a move good enough for you.
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I'm done talking about this. Forgive me for trying to help out someone new who might be better off with someone else. It was bad taste on my part
 
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