I'd like to share my opinions on Raph. I wont convince you he's not bad. That's probably still the case. But I firmly believe that last thing a normal person wants to hear is complains and excuses. If you do - you really be better off not playing video games any time soon. They're all a disappointment one way or another.
Yeah. When I play people who whine about their character's weaknesses rather than trying to pinpoint their own mistakes, it's no surprise that the next time we play those players show little improvement.
However I must disagree with the rest. Raph sucks! I played in France last week and got battered by everyone, except I beat 3 Raphs out of 3! QED!!
No no I joke. I think Raph can be strong so long as you stick to optimum (mid) range. I agree w/ Belial about unpredictability. If Raph stays at mid range and avoids the temptation to charge in with Prep and 236B, he is a very frustrating character. He has relatively quick mid-range pokes which suit his style as a fencer. If they get too close you have 1K and 44B (must read your opponent tho, can be GI'd and stepped).
He reminds me of Nightmare. Against Nightmare you can simply turtle to stop all of NM's mixups using Grim Stride. So an effective strat with Nightmare is to use moves that transition into GS, but not do the transition, or do empty GS, or use backstep/step/NSS instead. With Raph you can't be suckered into just going 3 [ B ] or 66 [ B ] mixup over and over. It gives your opponent an easy way out (step) just like GS gives NM's opponents and easy way out (2A or block and punish).
So I think against faster charcters, good idea is to play lame, zoning and poking. Frustrate them by keeping them out, no need to go for the huge damage combos.
The stances are much better if used unpredictably. Prep A is steppable, punishable, and low NC damage. But if you can make your opponent forget about it by never using it, what a tool it could be in later rounds! Irritate the opponent with 3B and 3 [ B ] BB, and then when you get a sense they want to TC / interrupt, hit them with the huge staple combo.
But yeah I think being unpredictable with the stance transitions is key. If Taki just did A,B,PO and 1B,A,PO over and over, no-one would have a hard time stopping her. But if she is using it sparsely and mixing with her 1/2/3-hit strings, suddenly she's not so predictable and it can be hard to find an opening to attack.
I don't envy you Raph players tho, I'll stick to my i11 AA. XD