Next character ?

I read the first post and nothing else. My advice would be to play patrokalos then come back to raph after a 100 hours with pat.

I promise you that the reeason your having issues with raph is because of the game itself being so subtly different from previous sc's. I had a ton of issues with raph myself initially, after learning the system Raph becomes fairly good.
 
I have to humbly disagree with Raph being "good." It'd be different if he had strengths outside of his verticals and this is going to destroy his whole strengths.

1. His horizontal game is weak. Find a good side stepper that punished like NM or Astaroth and Raph is largely helpless.

2. He doesn't have many combo opportunities now. After they took out 88/22 B, 3B Prep he's largely useless unless I'm missing something. I've noticed 88/22 B pretty much only connects with 66 B+K or 66 A+B now for max damage. His Prep game can work but only for pressure. Prep 2, B connecting to 2, 3, 6 B works for decent damage but that's IT.

3. He has horrible tracking and prep is weak. Side step a horizontal anyone? And pretty much all the prep moves can be ducked so someone like Algol or aPat could destroy that.

4. His CE is balls. It can be EASILY side stepped, does mediocre damage, and doesn't ring out. Dafux?


4 points should be all I need to claim Raph is horrible but if need be I could squeeze in a few more.
 
All right, I'm game.

Scyle said:
1. His horizontal game is weak. Find a good side stepper that punished like NM or Astaroth and Raph is largely helpless.
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His horizontal pressure game is weak, but that's because Raphael wants to be the one stepping. You forget to mention how great his step is.

Scyle said:
2. He doesn't have many combo opportunities now. After they took out 88/22 B, 3B Prep he's largely useless unless I'm missing something. I've noticed 88/22 B pretty much only connects with 66 B+K or 66 A+B now for max damage. His Prep game can work but only for pressure. Prep 2, B connecting to 2, 3, 6 B works for decent damage but that's IT.
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His 66B series is great. You can follow up with Prep A+B, or 66B+K. 22/88K still gives combo opportunities. There's also the 4{B} series, for Prep BBB or Prep 6BB BE. Again though, Raphael isn't really a "combo" character (not that combos matter that much anyway).

Scyle said:
3. He has horrible tracking and prep is weak. Side step a horizontal anyone? And pretty much all the prep moves can be ducked so someone like Algol or aPat could destroy that.
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Preparation at Point Blank Range is horrible. You're absolutely right. But (as we've been discussing), entering Prep at +11 makes Prep K i10, and something to at least make someone think twice about ducking.

Scyle said:
4. His CE is balls. It can be EASILY side stepped, does mediocre damage, and doesn't ring out. Dafux?
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You should not use a CE outside of a combo unless it is an aGI or you are out of range of punishment. Since Raphael's CE is clearly to be used in combos... well, the use is clear.
 
Point being, he's not an accessible character. Yeah he works, but you have to work at using him.

That's the point.
 
Scyle said:
I have to humbly disagree with Raph being "good." It'd be different if he had strengths outside of his verticals and this is going to destroy his whole strengths.

...
4 points should be all I need to claim Raph is horrible but if need be I could squeeze in a few more.
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Alright let me skip the numbers thing because I don't want to argue that point, Rtown seemed to have a decent thought process out of his anyways so no need to repeat anyone.

Raphael doesn't have a way to KO you in two combos in this game, this is true. But we are still very early in this game's development and Metagame changes constantly as game play styles evolve to be the current Meta. So instead of just calling him horrible let me ask you this question instead.

If I offered you a million dollars to beat a top player with Raphael at no cost to you if you lost what would be your game plan? That is the information that will be helpful to improve combat OR truly show Namco that he needs to be buffed in certain areas. Because in every forum there is a post about that character needing a buff in some area and here is why. Many of them are merely opinions with no real data behind them or rants and complaints about personal game play.

Now I am not saying that Raph doesn't need buffs. But if Namco does read these forums with any sort of interest to pull data from they need to hear what we can do at our most optimistic before they can really analyze what needs to be changed.

Despite popular belief balancing a fighting game is not easy by any sense of the word.
 
I expected a debate but this seems borderline denial.

If what I say is inaccurate, show me the way to play Raphael then I will hold back all complaints. I refuse to debate over this because what I've presented was with countless hours with Raph and playing 2 of the best Raphs I know. Oddly both named Savage but have no relation...

But just show me. But I doubt it's possible. :/
 
Negative comments isn't really anything to give us a debate on. And a character's accessibility to the audience is not a true measure of balance either. That is why they have a difficulty of play stat on the pentagon. But as my debate instructor use to tell me if you can't say anything positive about a subject you can't debate the negatives of it.

So with that in mind I am asking you, what do you find to be positive about Raph. After that we can really bring into light exactly what needs to be worked on from a developer stand point. Because like I said, saying only negative things won't bring about a change to a character. We need to see where is excels and where he lacks and decide what is meant to be a negative aspect of the character by nature and what is a true inherit flaw.
 
Well considering I'm on the "Anti-Raph" side, why don't you present the positive aspects? All I could feel is his positive are his maneuverability and pressure but that can be destroyed against a smart player.

Teach me his positives and PLEASE follow up with logical footage. If I need to, I can provide footage. My Raph isn't amazing but I can adequately show my problems.
 
I am unable to post videos for myself at the moment but I will cite videos already posted here.

Lets start with Wuht's recent Raph vs Viola video. You can see early on that he is playing as Raph should be, spacing Viola and hitting his pokes, entering closer only to do damage with sure hit combos. Rounds following that one show Viola playing her game which is largely combo based in order to juggle her opponent. This doesn't show any fault of Raph's personal balance that he is getting hit in this round but rather that the Viola was playing her game and this could have happened to anyone. Wuht stays right with Viola however, not abusing prep and getting himself opened to unsafe events and he wins based on punishes and controlling the range game. Raph's great range in this match up is what secures him the victory.

Now lets look at Solid's match vs Ivy (post 81 of the video thread). While he wins all 3 matches I don't want to focus on that, lets focus on the negative aspects of his game. You see him throw prep out there a few times and get punished big time for it. I feel he is a more aggressive Raph than Wuht from what I can see and there is a certain risk vs reward that comes with that game play. In this case when he reset himself up and just didn't throw attacks out there he was better able to control the match. But when he does whiff random moves he takes huge amounts of damage, this is the problem most people see with Raph. When someone whiffs against you the damage you return is not equal to theirs but you see Raph wasn't designed like that. While I do feel like nerfing 22A was a big deal because it no longer combos into a bread and butter damage he was never meant to do huge amounts of damage. His control is his major positive, his negative at the moment is they made a large amount of his moves unsafe for as little damage as he does (compared to characters like Mitsu or the Alex twins).

But as Wuht showed in his video when you control space you can do great for yourself against a very skilled player who was doing combos for huge amounts of damage. When you lose that control however that is when the danger comes in.

So what are Raph's positives? His range game when used properly controls space very well and even in the Ivy fight (who is also a ranged fighter) you are able to change up how your control works and operate from a mid range and CH her. What are the negatives for Raph? Too many of his moves seem unsafe for little in return for that, but that is what he needs in my opinion, tweaks. Not an overhaul.
 
Saphen said:
This doesn't show any fault of Raph's personal balance that he is getting hit in this round but rather that the Viola was playing her game and this could have happened to anyone.
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I believe I ate a tech trap, randomly 8B once, and tried to AA viola after she did some orb moves (thinking she would step) so I did make some mistakes. I just didn't expect to get punished so hard for them lol.

But as Wuht showed in his video when you control space you can do great for yourself against a very skilled player who was doing combos for huge amounts of damage.
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Please you're going to make Egg blush. He actually does have pretty good raph and anti raph knowledge but I don't think I did anything unorthodox in an attempt to throw him off.
 
Very good points. Looks like we're done with this little experiment in social etiquette. Time to clean up posts for better or for worse
 
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