Next character ?

G

Gwyidion

[08] Mercenary
I've been a lurker on here for a long while.

I've been playing Raph since SCIII, and i'm afraid i've finally been forced to go to another character as my main.

The bottom line is i've never been that good at him - my skill level is pretty limited by what is, honestly, a fairly poor reaction speed.

I like winning, but I like doing it on my own terms. This precludes me from playing characters like Natsu (or amy, in IV), or true/perceived 'god-tier' characters.

I imagine I like Raph for the same reason as many of you do, though i can't pin it down to any one reason why i've always like Raph's style through the last several games.

Now I need a new character. Can any of you list some characters you found appealing or semi-similar to Raph? I don't know what qualities i'm looking for, but I imagine if other Raph-dedicants found a given character a good fit, it will probably go for me as well.

I'm leaning towards Cervantes, but i'm not sure.

Oh, and obviously, it would help if the character suggested didn't suck donkey balls. (sigh... our poor raph)
 
Couple things:

If you're not already playing in tournaments, the Raph nerf doesn't really affect you all that much. His basic play style is still intact. If you think your only problem is a limited reaction time, then switching characters isn't gonna help. If the thought behind this is that you have to make hard guesses to account for not being able to see moves coming, then you play Mitsu or Yoshi, characters with hard knockdown lows into a mixup. But honestly that's only gonna take you so far. Reaction time has to be coupled with anticipation and prediction anyway. Someone locally was complaining that Partisan can just duck throws on reaction at a recent tourney, but it's not true. He's reacting to the circumstance, reacting to you taking a step into throw range, etc. He still has to make a hard guess on whether or not to duck. And anyone can see slow lows with some practice, as long as you keep a cool head.

Second, play whoever you want. There's no badge of honor for NOT picking someone that's top tier like Natsu. If you like her play style, then play her. People are gonna whine about shit all day anyway, just play whoever you want. Nobody cares whether you play top tier or not. Maybe scrubs care, but you're here to NOT be a scrub presumably. I see this all the time, people that want to play someone, but drop them because they wound up being "too strong" and they want to "challenge themselves." Playing against people who are truly skilled is a challenge no matter who you pick.

As far as a new character with a style similar to Raph, you're looking for evasive techniques and mid to long range poking. Algol fills the mid/long range game but not the evasive part, and his movement is limited. Xiba has better evasive moves, but his ranged tools are a little more risky. Ivy might be another character worth looking at. She's possibly in the top tier now which will get you over that ridiculous stigma, and her ranged poking game is strong.
 
after 4 years of almost only DAILY raph i tried to use cervantes

You can do the same things but with better results expecially post patch..

the pirate has backsteps, aGI, awesome punishers and also spacing tools....also can be used with a good degree of versatility, thing that raph lacks a lot.

also has the 4 lame things any top tier character needs:
-command throw
-heavy damage
-half bar combo punisher
-invisible low pokes


P.S. consider also that igdr is easy as hell...i sucks at commands and i've yet to miss one....

P.P.S: also i don t see why people who don t go to torunaments should not have a FAIR chance to compete with strong players......
Its not that a tournament registration makes you better than everybody...expecially since you can play tournament players both online that IRL just for fun.
And a fighting game is about getting good also...
 
Well, the truth is, less than 1% of my games are against people who are good with whatever character they play. No local play, 9/10 internet players rely on gimmicks, and 9/10 of the remainder are so so.

It matters to me who i play.

I'll give Cervy and Xiba a look.
 
Gwyidion said:
I like winning, but I like doing it on my own terms.
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So basically, you are constantly pitting your ego and super-ego against each other inside your own mind...

But really, as NotTown and darkfender say, play whatever style appeals to you most. If you play relatively casually, then choose your style relatively casually as well. Symmetry can be good, and the game is about fun, after all.

That being said, don't give up on Raphael. My reaction skills are not that great compared to high-level tournament players, but Raphael still has the tools to win consistently outside of tournament settings. Cervantes and Mitsurugi are close enough to his game (I think), and I personally think playing as Z.W.E.I is very fun.
 
Lets just say I don't see the point in choosing the very best character. I don't agree with the dichotomy of WAAC vs scrub. If changing my character from Talim to Amy or Lizardman to Natsu increases my win-rate by 70%... thats... nice, but not as important as gaining skill with a character whose movelist i can interface well with.

I'll try zwei too.

As for raph... I've yet to take the new Raph out of training, but short of CE, he has very little guaranteed damage. My main damage source was 22B->3B->prepBB BE (as i'm sure most people's was). With SE B not tracking as well and SE A less safe on block and with prep BBB less safe on block, and since prepK was never guaranteed... prep is just a mess. I don't see any reason for the opponent to do anything but block and punish.
 
RT0wn said:
Raphael still has the tools to win consistently.
Click to expand...

Not at the tournament level, he doesn't. Trust me, I've played against the best of the best (in North America) and Raph BARELY was able to hang in there before, and now, it just isn't possible. I'm not saying don't play him, do what you want, but don't say Raph has the tools to be played in tournaments, cause he doesn't.

Also, I'm not bragging when I say I've played against the best of the best, and I'm not saying that I'm as good as them, but that I have the experience to explain that, if you and someone of equal skill were playing now, and you use Raph, and they use almost anyone else, you will lose more than you will win, instead of going 50/50. I watched my win percentage against people drop about 20 percentage points across the board post-patch.

If you just wanna play against your buddies and have fun, Raph is still the guy for you...if you want to go to tournaments and win money, then you better move along.
 
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I wonder if I can make that dude from Amistad in CaS?
 
As long as you don't have any plans to win any tournaments, stick with whatever character you like best.

Raph needs all the love he can get, lol.
 
KowtowRobinson said:
See that's just it, I DO plan on winning more tournaments lol. But the rest of y'all have fun.
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Hahaha, I was talking to Gwyidion.

I plan on taking part in tournaments soon here, but I don't have high expectations of placing well. I may play as Raph, but only because I wouldn't make it far anyways, lol. Otherwise, Natsu, Leixia, or Yosh.
 
Habast said:
Hahaha, I was talking to Gwyidion.

I plan on taking part in tournaments soon here, but I don't have high expectations of placing well. I may play as Raph, but only because I wouldn't make it far anyways, lol. Otherwise, Natsu, Leixia, or Yosh.
Click to expand...

Always be thinking about what needs to be done to win. If it doesn't go your way, take it with a grain of salt of course, but even new players should be earnestly trying to win. Take it one move at a time, see what works and what doesn't work. Don't go in admitting defeat before you even push the buttons.
 
i've been betting on pat&algol as new characters. algol feels very slow and it's hard to keep up with the normal spacing game i would play with raph. but his long pokes give the same type of ranged game: keep out for a bit until you see/hit a hole in the defence and go for it. all his juggles are meter depentant, so it's interesting to play that game too. makes me realise that i always had more than enough meter with raph.

pat is a whole different beast. with him i've learned how bad my basics are in this game. i chose him as i play aggresive raph. with his fast movement i thought i could do the spacing game more like raph, but it doesn't work that way. pat's all in there, so you really need to be on point with escapes and evading the right attacks(ss, duck, tc, tj, everything). his backdash is also very weak.

i had a theory that hilde would be a good alternative, but i can't play aggresive enough with her tools.

sieg is still on my list, mitsu also. but i'm sticking with pat/algol for a while just to see if i'm missing something. otherwise i will know 2 new characters and have an easier time vs them in tournaments :)
 
I've actually gravitated to Hilde.

Shes very different - she isn't nearly as quick as Raph, but I was really startled at how powerful her charge moves are as whiff punishers. c3BA is brutal. Easily punishable on block, but hit confirmable.

Now I'm waffling between doubling down on Raph, and switching to a new main for the first time in... 6 years?
 
recently i've been thinking the opposite.

after the patch.... i like the new buffs... and considering him maybe upgrading to become my main over NM.... still considering.

-LAU
 
Wow it'd be nice to have more people jumping on the raph bandwagon.. but after the patch and from nightmare ? I'll take all the findings you can procure!
 
well thing is... I haven't played much NM pre-patch.... only played a lot of NM post patch... and I'll admit that NM is probably the strongest he's ever been in SC... even after getting the slight nerf post patch...

Raphael on the other hand I've been playing quite a lot both pre and post patch....

My NM is still better than Raph at the moment... and I'm still continuing to look into other characters at the same time...

however.... after playing post patch Raphael more and more.... its getting more and more vague to myself if he's really nerfed.... on some days i actually think he's buffed.

The reason is after the patch... in general his damage seems to have increased overall....

yes it is true you can no longer abuse 22B into 3(b), prep b b BE.... however.... they haven't taken away using CE after 22B which is still his biggest damage combo from 22B.....

22B is still extremely strong it's just you can't abuse it the way you can do it before.... but the good qualities of this move like it's STILL fast, safe, good reach, combo starter remains the same.. the only thing is.. you have more disadvantage and less 'comboable'

but to make up for that... you got two more new combo starters that actually matters to 'higher level' prep pressure....

CH Prep K and Prep BB CH B are both extremely important and actually strengthens Raph's prep game tremendously.... anyone who knows a decent anti-raph game knows that a decently quick TC move will beat out most of raph's options.... before in order to put any fear in your opponent your option is to use a BE... but now you don't need to..... and ontop of that if you have CE... you can hit confirm into it for a massive punishment for trying to use a TC move at disadvantage ensuring that they should've stayed put and let us continue the mixup....

As for the other nerfs.... SE B tracking gotten worse.... honestly..... I don't notice how it's nerfed because i never used it as a tracking move before... and the way i used it to track still works similarly as long as you're still in SE... and you haven't pressed B it's still tracking... once they stop 8WR you press B after they stop it'll still track them.....and honestly most of the time i'm using SE B i never assumed it'll hit them sideways... and on top of that the way i've been using it half the time is they are out of range to use anything and i'm doing SE (blank) or SE B if they move forward or try to attack from FARRRRRRR range.

SE A nerf.... this does make raph's offense not as strong but only by slightly.... the new SE A is most importantly still safe... and ontop of that a decent JG bait move on block...... -6 isn't too bad if you're using this right you should still be able to back dash away from most moves after it gets blocked.... if not then you should ask yourself why not SE K.... is it because the character you're fighting against can punish it really bad?

long story short.... i find the new place to combo into CE and the damage increase because of some of these new combos sometimes makes me feel it's a buff....

some players feel that Raph is easily bottom 5 character... but i have to disagree.. simply because range in this game is sooooo important more so than any other SC before... and with Raph he's one of the very few rare characters that can keep up with all range....... part of the damage game comes in how easily can you land those combos....

I'll try to see if i can upload a few videos soon

-LAU
 
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