Raphael General Discussion / Q&A

[Gojira]

Dude sorry but that stance was horrible. It took a small step forward while the match was starting so he was always closer before you had control of him, and even during the match the stance itself put his hit area more forward than most characters, which gave opponents a pretty dumb advantage over his range.

Looked cool though.

 

[WuHT]

I still think Raphael needs this to become competitive. People will become so mesmerized they lose the will to fight.

View attachment 16990

His slightly hunched rigid neutral pose was not as interesting as his SC2 neutral animation I'll agree.

Where is that from ? Just odd to me its on a transparent background.

Obviously gojira if you held guard raphael wouldn't be moving forward as much so its not as big an issue as you make it out to be.

 

[Evil_Zutus]

Maybe it was flawed, but that could be corrected. Maxi dances sideways all the time, thank god it doesn't evade raph's verticals :p

 

[Heaton]

It would be unfortunate to have that neutral stance in this game, since being even a step closer from the regular neutral position can mean a move can kill all of Raphael's movement at a battle's start, whereas a normal starting position creates a scenario where killing movement immediately at the start requires both a huge commitment from the opponent and a specialized moveset.

 

[Gojira]

Obviously gojira if you held guard raphael wouldn't be moving forward as much so its not as big an issue as you make it out to be.

No, it was an issue that carried over to his 8WR, backdash and guarding stance. He was just too far forward and got nicked by things that looked like they shouldn't have connected. It was only less of a problem back then because you could actually maneuver him back with retreat step and Prep A, but now? Hell no. He can barely even backdash now. A stance like that would be a nerf.

 

[FluffyQuack]

Eh, they could have added it as an easter egg at least. Like hold start when selecting the character and you get the awesome superior stance. I guess it technically is a drawback gameplay-wise, but I'm personally not bothered by that.

His slightly hunched rigid neutral pose was not as interesting as his SC2 neutral animation I'll agree.

Where is that from ? Just odd to me its on a transparent background.

I captured it from the game myself (the gif would look a lot better if it wasn't limited to 256 colours). I've been toying with a random project which involves adding a green screen to the game so I could key out the background.

Edit: Here we go, Raphael stance in awesome quality!

 

[WuHT]

Neat your little Gif project seems to be pretty awesome. For those with green costumes (like cassandra's 2P) you just swap background colours until you find one that is not used right ?

Looking forward to your "gallery" of gifs in the future.

 

[FluffyQuack]

Neat your little Gif project seems to be pretty awesome. For those with green costumes (like cassandra's 2P) you just swap background colours until you find one that is not used right ?

Looking forward to your "gallery" of gifs in the future.

I'm using pink right now as background colour, but yeah, it would easy to swap that out if another colour is needed. So far pink seems to have no problems. If you're curious, here's how a screenshot looks before keying out the background: http://h11.abload.de/img/cassandra-idle0000619rwj0j.png

The only annoyance is that the camera moves automatically as the character moves, and I'm not sure how I can prevent that from happening.

This is very offtopic, so I'm starting a new thread about this at: http://8wayrun.com/threads/sc2-gifs.13293/

 

[Reptile]

Honestly I think Raphael is awesome. I'm not gonna say that he's really good, but maybe some people should stop doing stuff that don't work and complaining that it doesn't, and start trying to play differently with him.

His weaknesses are so bad it's not even funny? True. Then how about working on his strenghts?

- He is a good punisher : that i12 6BB catches a lot of stuff than no one can. Ok, it's shit damage and neutral. So what? It's a punish and the damage will rack up. 3~prep AB or BB reaches a lot of stuff other characters can't at -16 like NM's 22AA. Don't mention Pyrrha , ok? It's annoying. Granted his punishment from crouch really kinda sucks. But you can always throw a i12 CE right?

- Whiff punishment : One word : 236B. I think this is one of the best whiff punisher in the game. If you space well, especially against short ranged characters, they will learn to hate that move. And Raphael's step is pretty decent. Take a step, look at someone slash the air, and punish.

To me he was designed to be a defensive character and it is obvious. He also has some great tools like 4B, 4A+B, and some good moves like WR B, 22B, 66A+B (-4 with pushback is sweet with Raph). Also his throw game is strong. That B throw is good man, reaches those walls and ring edges. 60 damage/ health recovery A throw.

Also his Guard break game is solid. Spam that 66B+K on grounded. Oh and another thing, everytime you land SE B it's 100 damage. And in case they block it it's +3.

I mean no disrecpect here, I picked up Raphael a few weeks ago and he's not that bad for me. Right now he's a solid secondary for me as I might be trying him out in future tourneys. So feel free to tell me how wrong I am on these statements.

 

[Therenovator]

Honestly I think Raphael is awesome. I'm not gonna say that he's really good, but maybe some people should stop doing stuff that don't work and complaining that it doesn't, and start trying to play differently with him.

He's weaknesses are so bad it's not even funny? True. Then how about working on his strenghts?

- He is a good punisher : that i12 6BB catches a lot of stuff than no one can. Ok, it's shit damage and neutral. So what? It's a punish and the damage will rack up. 3~prep AB or BB reaches a lot of stuff other characters can't at -16 like NM's 22AA. Don't mention Pyrrha , ok? It's annoying. Granted his punishment from crouch really kinda sucks. But you can always throw a i12 CE right?

- Whiff punishment : One word : 236B. I think this is one of the best whiff punisher in the game. If you space well, especially against short ranged characters, they will learn to hate that move. And Raphael's step is pretty decent. Take a step, look at someone slash the air, and punish.

To me he was designed to be a defensive character and it is obvious. He also has some great tools like 4, 4A+B, and some good moves like WR B, 22B, 66A+B (-4 with pushback is sweet with Raph). Also his throw game is strong. That B throw is good man, reaches those walls and ring edges. 60 damage/ health recovery A throw.

Also his Guard break game is solid. Spam that 66B+K on grounded. Oh and another thing, everytime you land Prep B it's 100 damage. And in case they block it it's +3.

I mean no disrecpect here, I picked up Raphael a few weeks ago and he's not that bad for me. Right now he's a solid secondary for me as I might be trying him out in future tourneys. So feel free to tell me how wrong I am on these statements.

i could not agree more so many people just jump on the hes bad band wagon without even knowing nothing about the character,this is the same for Zwei i mean these same people were the ones calling viola bad during the early months of the game.

i have found that majority of people on this site just go with what everyone else thinks without having any proof or concrete evidence. if you were to ask them why they think hes bad you wont get much.
for the range ralph has hes actually pretty fast hes the fastest spacing character in the game and probably the best.
some players just dont get that.

 

[Mr.Hai]

No, it was an issue that carried over to his 8WR, backdash and guarding stance. He was just too far forward and got nicked by things that looked like they shouldn't have connected.

Asta has a stupid shifting box issue, from starting positions sometimes 4B can connect. Anyway as long as they time the movement so that he has retreated to the original position as the match commences, could it be functional/how does Maxi's work?

I'm not gonna say that he's really good etc...

Unfortunately the reason we only talk weaknesses is that we (think we) know his strengths. It seems everyone comes in talking like we have missed secrect tech and don't realize it. Anyway keep the optimism!

Granted his punishment from crouch really kinda sucks

wrB is a great move and can punish a lot of things. We also have fc3B and 236B.

Oh and another thing, everytime you land Prep B it's 100 damage. And in case they block it it's +3.

SE B is a more clear notation.

Its great to see new players, maybe we should have a player intro thread?

 

[Reptile]

Well Mr.Hai, I'm not a new player. But thank you for correcting me about the Prep B thing. I really meant SE B.

 

[Mandritti]

It's hard to punish with fc 3B. I still like it as a straight interrupt even though I don't need CH for stun.
...then again, it should be able to discourage hangin' around my face when I eat FrC on block. Hmm, maybe there's something to cook here. This is why I don't do training mode much. I don't figure out anything except with words.

236B is my antidrug. 236B > 22B. 236B clean hits all dai. It's not hard at all to whiff punish with it when it's just your plum favorite move.
I don't like 66B+K otg... it betrays me as often as it dominates a round. People just eat the 11K, so I do that. I do think, however, there's a magical spacing that makes it demonic.

 

[Gamegenie222]

Go ahead and have a player intro thread I wouldn't mind.

 

[Mr.Hai]

Well Mr.Hai, I'm not a new player

Apologies.
Edit for semantics: New Raphael SA poster-player.

It's hard to punish with fc 3B

ifc3B makes me forget about using it from crouch so I usualy use wrB for everything under 236B.

 

[Kvasir]

So there is one area I'm still feeling out that I'd like to get opinions on. What tactics do you guys use to instigate offense from your opponent?

With most characters I'd just push mix-ups, but that generally seems to have worse risk/reward than Raph's interrupt and counter game (as long as he's not locked into close range). So I'd love to find a couple more ways to make my opponents want come after me even after they've taken a rapier to face a couple times.

So far all I've thought to do without getting into close range is abusing 1A (had couple issues with it being stepped left around tip), step canceled by pokes (to force people to block and get an auto response), and just pure patience.

 

[Leonyx]

Try using 33B more. It does a good amount of damage and it has a bunch of range on it. It's linear though. 22A also works, but it has less range and damage. Plus it's high.

 

[Heaton]

snip

The most important thing to remember about trying to make opponent come to you: you need to have the health advantage when you're trying to instigate offensive reactions from your opponent. Otherwise they don't really have a reason to come to you, and often you'll be the one who has to make the next move.

Raphael's K+G is probably one of the best in the game for this sort of thing, becomes it moves Raphael forward and then backwards quite a distance - almost that of a regular 6 ~ 4 input. It's also cancel-able any time in its animation, and you can spam K+G to do little stutter steps forward. B+K and 4A+B also work as a taunt, but are more risky because you cannot cancel them into other moves, and that's something a good opponent will realize as well.

If you're at fairly great distances, 4B+K builds pretty good meter on whiff, and can be a way to make your opponent come to you if they pay attention to the meter you're gaining - if they're not paying attention, hey, free meter gains for you. Just be careful and realize that there's a strong chance they'll run in if you keep doing it, so be ready and make sure you're not doing it when they're right up in your face.

You can also whiff safe, non-committal moves with good range like iFC 3B, iWR B, and 1B. These are also very good for hitting people on the way in, so you can use them to keep your opponent wary of being too reckless while not exposing yourself too much either. The meter gain on these isn't as good as 4B+K, but these actually hit opponents in front of you, which is more important if you're trying to actually hit people instead of just whiffing to make people do something.

 

[WuHT]

If you're at fairly great distances, 4B+K builds pretty good meter on whiff, and can be a way to make your opponent come to you if they pay attention to the meter you're gaining - if they're not paying attention, hey, free meter gains for you.

Argh and i've been just using prepBB~prep4 in a corner to build meter if my opponent turtles. Will try more 4B+K.

 

[Saphen]

Argh and i've been just using prepBB~prep4 in a corner to build meter if my opponent turtles. Will try more 4B+K.

When people turtle a great deal I just try to get that little sliver of a life lead and then force them to come in. Seems to be working ok so far and I tend to get a lot of 236B's from there impatience. But I can't quite tell yet if I am just doing well vs low knowledge players or if it is a real good strat. (Since the ranking system doesn't really tell you how good someone is but rather how long someone grinds).