Raphael Video Discussion

When I'm better at commentary than someone else, something is very wrong with the universe. Would anyone share what 'poking' is? I must be crazy.

Why no B throw? It's stronger than normal A throw, and doesn't break on the same input as Vamp throw. It's good that you focused your prep followups to what your opponent wasn't doing.

Hilde match was interesting. Also frustrating for me to watch. You adapted better than I would have. I think your spacing was lackadaisical. You were getting hit by charge A generally because you weren't giving a shit. Of course, it was good enough, but going 3-2 after perfects must feel odd to you.
I applaud having a plan and sticking to it. Also reading the shit out of Siegfried.
edit: one more thing, with your playstyle I think confirming CH 6BB BE would really help. 33K not so much value.
 
Mandritti said:
Why no B throw? It's stronger than normal A throw, and doesn't break on the same input as Vamp throw. It's good that you focused your prep followups to what your opponent wasn't doing.
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Regular A+G does 55 and B+G does 50.

As for my lacking commentary, I felt you got rather predictable with stuff like 3B (no other followups after SE B on block?) and 11_77K (seemed like half of all your oki lol). The Hilde player in particular was getting good mileage out of reading those moves, it seemed. That said, watching you play was interesting since you make bigger and bolder offensive decisions than I tend to nowadays. While I feel you could have made more use of horizontals and played less predictably with your offensive rhythms, you managed to get plenty of quick wins in your matches, so who am I to complain. =P
 
Wyde said:
Regular A+G does 55 and B+G does 50.
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Actually A+G does only 50 while B+G does only 45 in SCV. However, you can do 1A or 2K depending on the character after a B throw for a little more dmg. Im not sure what Mandritti meant by B throw being "stronger" but B throw has both RO potential AND wall splat. Throughout the matches, B throw could have lead to high damage when he was near walls.
 
I saw Gohan's gameplay in that tournament before. He did really well though he got second place or something I think, but Gohan improved a lot!! Hope he gets even better!! Keep up the good work Gohan!!!
 
I am surprised he almost never uses 236B. Like maybe once? Wow. Now understand this is coming from the worst Raphael player of all time (I checked) but I love that move for punishing. I wonder why he keeps it out of most of his style.
 
Gohan used 236B like 5 times in those matchs, and it was only blocked once, when he was trying to go for a guard break.
He will only use this move if it's guaranteed to hit.
Blocked it may be safe, but it put you in negative frames, really close from your opponent.
That's something he try to avoid in order to remain in control of his space.

If he can punish with a more damaging option, like 66B, he will go for it instead.
 
JodorowskyVIII said:
Gohan used 236B like 5 times in those matchs, and it was only blocked once, when he was trying to go for a guard break.
He will only use this move if it's guaranteed to hit.
Blocked it may be safe, but it put you in negative frames, really close from your opponent.
That's something he try to avoid in order to remain in control of his space.

If he can punish with a more damaging option, like 66B, he will go for it instead.
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After reviewing I see you are right. Though I would argue that the bulk of them were against the Tira player only once against the Zwei.

But I can see exactly what you are saying about 66B. Something I will see if I can incorporate into my own game.
 
youngfox said:
lack of prep is a mistake imo, its a gd part of raph game play
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This will sound dickheaded but I assure you it's not malicious.

You're not playing good enough people then. Prep is really really really risky in high level play. I've been screwed hard by nobodies for using prep more than next to never using it like we all should. It has uses yes but it will get you trashed. Hell, half of my mirror match wins come from sitting there and blocking Prep all day long until they SE or do a Prep 4 and cold stone cock knocking the other Raph for it. It's easy as pie I tell ya.
 
I have to agree with Bojack. You're a beastly Raph player youngfox, but from my experience in SCV and all of the previous games with Raph, Prep was MUCH more risky than people believed. Even in SC2, where moves were generally safe, there was no completely safe path out of the many Prep stances. Raph could easily be interrupted while going from stance to stance, move to move. Generally speaking among the games, Prep was always a problem when entering it on block, allowing people to hit you before your Prep attack lands, not to mention the unsafety of many Prep attacks on guard. As bad as Prep was in SC4, that i12 Prep A saved Raph numerous times from a Prep counter though it was not 100% reliable. Currently in SC5, two easily TCed highs, a slow, crappy mid Prep K, and a very slow Prep A+B low cause Prep to become a suicide stance. Prep 4 goes back into Prep, has a very narrow window, and does not retreat neither far enough nor quickly enough. SE, which lasts 19 frames minimum (why namco, why!!??) can be easily interrupted even with Prep entry on hit/advantage. Now if it lasted 16 frames, it might be more useful with 3(B)'s +15 on hit.

Prep may be meant to apply further pressure on the opponent as that is why namco provides plus frames on Prep entry. However, almost all of Raph's Prep entry moves are unsafe on block (-14ish) without actually entering Prep. Namco is basically forcing us to enter Prep which is extremely risky. 3B and 66B are exceptions since the former has spacing and the second is a guard break. Next game, they need to change this illogical tradition and make Prep entry moves safer on block when not entering stance to allow us to avoid Prep and reduce the risks.

It is very possible to play a strong Raph without Prep, not just in SCV. Imo Prep should be utilized for combo and guaranteed damage, as in the case of 4B Prep BBB, 3B Prep BB/AB, and 66B Prep A+B. SE and Prep 4 use should be minimum.
 
Fendante said:
I couldn't say it better
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How are we supposed to install our game when Raphs key moves are -14 on block ?

Btw, do you know names of Raph players who often play in tournaments and whose matches could have been recorded ? Post patch, of course. I can search their videos on the net and post them here.
 
i feel like im repeating myself here but prep is a mix up tool. Get a read from ur opponent and get gd dmg off of it. I really dont wanna go into a huge rant on this but prep is a big part of raphs game and to ignore hinders your potential w raph. going into prep of of a blocked 3b is perfectly viable and is a gd mix up between prep and no prep. As far as not playing gd enough people well u guys saw the vids i dunno how much better comp i can get until the next mlg. even then i assure u i can use the fact that people think they know how to beat prep against them easily. something as simple as immediate SE after 3b to blow up 2a for 115dmg makes prep very viable at all lvls.

Quick example: i was fighting an A1 asta( yea rank dont matter but even hawkeye started as an online warrior) that knew to 66k after all prep entries. i purposely let him hit me outta it twice so i knew he'd think it was always guaranteed after 3b. third time i didnt enter prep JG the bull rush and punished w CE, he stopped trying to 66k prep after that. condition ur opponent w prep instead of just blindly doing it
 
2 things.

-236B is not completely safe it's -12 and puts them in crouch on block. Meaning generic 2A's will punish and more importantly, CE's. Very good move and a Raphael' classic, but not abusable.

-If you're not using Prep with Raph you're doing it wrong.
 
youngfox said:
Quick example: i was fighting an A1 asta( yea rank dont matter but even hawkeye started as an online warrior) that knew to 66k after all prep entries. i purposely let him hit me outta it twice so i knew he'd think it was always guaranteed after 3b. third time i didnt enter prep JG the bull rush and punished w CE, he stopped trying to 66k prep after that. condition ur opponent w prep instead of just blindly doing it
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That's a neat idea. There's no reason for Asta to -NOT- just sit there and wait to see Raph go into SE or block a Prep A+B and then trash Raph. BE Bullrush should do quite nicely to blow through anything Raph can do from SE.

Yes you can do Prep moves and not go into Prep to play accordingly of course. This is as I've said very risky against high level players because Raph's at pretty significant negaitves on any move that go into Prep if he doesn't Prep. So stunts like what you did to the Asta player can work but it's overall more risky for Raph to play like this then to use SE/prep sparingly.
 
Youngfox don't feel Im trying to downgrade your ideas. I respect you and your skills a lot and Im just giving my opinion. I know you can mixup Prep moves/options but from my experience, some players are so bullheaded that no mixup or conditioning will make them fear Prep and not interrupt it or block/step and punish it. We're all Raphs here but we each have a unique style However, any good Raph who wants to utilize Prep should fully understand the risks and flaws it carries. We can all agree that Prep has a bunch of flaws (SCV Prep is even worse than the last game imo) and we really need to discuss how to improve Prep and attribute more effective purposes to it when SC6 is announced.

The key problem to Prep in SCV is the lack of a fully tracking relatively fast horizontal that can prevent step, TC, and other Prep shutdown techniques.

Reptile said:
2 things.

-236B is not completely safe it's -12 and puts them in crouch on block. Meaning generic 2A's will punish and more importantly, CE's. Very good move and a Raphael' classic, but not abusable.

-If you're not using Prep with Raph you're doing it wrong.
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Good points. However, I will say that Prep should not be absolutely crucial to Raph's gameplay. In the past, even the best players hardly used Prep and won consistently, but enough of that. Namco screwed up Prep in SCV and we are forced to use it as best as we can to do big damage other than CE and BE. Raph has to blow way more meter than the rest of the cast to inflict pain. This is a huge uphill battle against other characters who can do insane damage through non-stance strings and combos.
 
the risk reward is pretty even actually. lets take worse case scenario and consider the risk reward vs pyrrah's stab. to punish 3b she has to stab immediately so she is reacting to 3b to punish. if she punishes she gets like 60 dmg,but to counter this we can use prep 4. if we use prep 4 we get about 78 dmg (prep kBE -> 2k) or at worse 40 dmg (prep A+B). A smart pyrrah will notice the rise in punishing just 3b isnt worth the mind game and will let 3b go unpunish most of the time, if not then the risk reward is favorable for us.

The main thing w this before anyone says pyraah out dmgs raph left and right is that if we space correctly we should have the life lead before she gets in. once she is in those kinda risk are completely worth it and if guess right not only do we do gd dmg but we can usually push them out.

Anyway if ud like to continue this discussion then i suggest we move this to the general thread

@fendante the bullheaded ones are the easy to deal with, find their pattern then exploit. Its all gd to have a different play style but to neglect a big part of raphs gameplay is a mistake imo
 
Hmm neat info. My bad...I didn't notice we're not in the general thread. Let's move before an angry WuHT storms in lol.

You have much more experience than I do and I gotta give it to ya. You have a point with the last statement.
 
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