Raphael General Discussion / Q&A

So what side of the fence are you on?

Do these moves, like SE, have uses?

Or do you avoid them for a safe poke game?
 
My Raph I tend to go for both styles while trying to go for an offensive style with it but I'm not a frame data monster like some people so I tend to get rolled up by characters even harder that I have trouble against.
 
First off, I don't play Raphael so my opinion could be very wrong.

If you are playing someone who is ready to block Prep pokes then I think SE B is a good option because of advantage and gaurd break. SE K is really good because a lot of players won't be expecting a low and have a fear of getting hit by SE B. The problem with prep in general is that most characters have brain dead answers to them. That's why a lot of people try to play him as a spacing character. It depends on how the player can adjust to your Raph style is how you play him.
 
There really isnt a single brain dead answer against prep, every answer has a counter for comparable dmg. also for those who think holding block and punishing SE on reaction is a solution then they are ignoring a few facts. First SEA comes out i15 which is pretty quick and secound you get a free unchallenged prep AB which creates really good space on block
 
imo,I think it's important to alternate between the two approaches. Contrary to some people's belief, risky and unsafe strategies also have their place in any fighting game. Sometimes doing something "out of the rule" can be unexpected and catch opponent off guard, and be just what you needed to win. The problem appears when you overuse this sort of strategy and make it your main goal. They're risky for a reason, and the reward doesn't always justify such risk
 
There really isnt a single brain dead answer against prep, every answer has a counter for comparable dmg. also for those who think holding block and punishing SE on reaction is a solution then they are ignoring a few facts. First SEA comes out i15 which is pretty quick and secound you get a free unchallenged prep AB which creates really good space on block

Even if a move, such as Bullrush, can crush every single Prep option, we have options against it. You can fake Prep and JG it and then CE punish it for big damage. Another example would be a TC launcher. If you fake Prep and block it, Raph gets to punish his opponent for making that mistake. Other characters may have threatening, consistent shut-down options, but Raph still has options to counter those.
 
I can't win though.

If I post a video, the player I played against will have supposedly either played badly, or just be a bad player.

Plus, how does my personal performance affect my posts? I do well, sure, but it will either be seen as luck / a gimmick / voodoo if anyone sees me body someone, or a close match will just look like a combination of all 3.

Playing the victim card won't help either.
 
Random 2K/2A/etc poke shenanigan analysis
Tested against Gloomy Tira due to her exemplary normals (AA/BB/2A/2K) while in Gloomy:
2K on hit into 6K beats 2A, 2K interrupt attempts
2A on block into 6K beats 2A, 2K interrupt attempts.
WR B on block into 6K beats 2K, loses to 2A
6K beats 2K on hit into FC A

WR B on block into 3A+B:5 beats 2A, 2K. Difficult to do but is a more damaging alternative to 44B or 9B.
 
There really isnt a single brain dead answer against prep, every answer has a counter for comparable dmg. also for those who think holding block and punishing SE on reaction is a solution then they are ignoring a few facts. First SEA comes out i15 which is pretty quick and secound you get a free unchallenged prep AB which creates really good space on block

But it's like i15 plus the minimum frames Raph has to be in SE before attack. So it's like closer to i30+ and since Raph HAS to telegraph the SE then they can quite literally defeat all SE options. Certain characters can do it quite handily. You're correct that there are no 100% anti Prep options except for standing guard sort of. That's the issue I've been pressing and won't bother to repeat again.
 
With the range and back step of SE it can be made difficult for all characters. i completely understand your point and dont necessarily disagree, im just saying it isnt as reliable an answer to prep as it has been made out to be.
 
With the range and back step of SE it can be made difficult for all characters. i completely understand your point and dont necessarily disagree, im just saying it isnt as reliable an answer to prep as it has been made out to be.

I'm sure some characters can handle it better than others, I do get a feeling that all the important characters have a good SE on reaction answer tho'. That leaves us with Prep however which as faulty as may be has good practical applications and should be investigated. I've been working with like, doing a 3B~BB into Prep again and then like just doing an A if I'm close enough or something mixing that up with not going into Prep not to keep pressure up but to have them stand there so I can create space with Prep, and not just P4 cuz that sucks.
 
The space created by 3(B) into SE can sometimes make pyrrahs stab whiff, so SE isnt abusable but you can force it on your opponent sometimes. now if you want to create space with prep than use prep AB, the space it creates is pretty nice. its -16 but when you mix it up with prep or no prep off of AB then you can get away with a lot

EDIT: i guess my point is i am not going to force prep alot on say atsta cuz of his answer to it but i will force it alot on natsu even though she is suppose to have a universal option
 
Vs Prep, I don't think Natty lite would have a brain dead response (don't know her tech crouches that well) but I think her spinning bird kick should stuff SE and the range is terrific.

I meant more or less using broken Prep strings to give myself that moment of "hey he didn't do Prep AB, he just did Prep A.... and he just back dashed, damn now he's back at range" type stuff.
 
her spinning bird kick should be everything but its unsafe on block and -4 on hit so i dont mind the gamble. I like the broken strings, i try to toss em out there every now and then. they really fuck with ur oppoent and lead to gd spacing
 
It doesn't really matter if it's unsafe on block cuz if she's doing in reaction to SE it oughta land, so she stuffs SE and only has to give up slight advantage, she might have other SE counters I just don't know Natty very well. Luckly it's not as bad as SC2 where a -4 would have make Taki like, -1 or so due to difference in speed between Taki and Raph cuz Raph was the slowest character in SC2....... believe it!
 
i meant spinning bird kick also beats all of prep off most openers. in reaction to SE then SEA should beat it. Didnt know raph was that slow in SC2, i wasnt really competitive back then
 
i meant spinning bird kick also beats all of prep off most openers. in reaction to SE then SEA should beat it. Didnt know raph was that slow in SC2, i wasnt really competitive back then

Yeah his fastest general move was 6B at i13. I think his standing K was also i13 IIRC. Since i10 A's were plentiful back in SC2 you can see how this stacks up when most of his moves were i16 or slower. Anything with negative frames meant Raph was ages from getting an attack out. I think 236B was either 23 or 27 frames. Raph had major, major problems back in 2. SCV Raph is by far the strongest Raph we've ever had. 22B (33B in 2) took a CH for the knock down, there was no 33KB BE or anything like it. I think all prep entry was at disadvantage too so no tasty +2's with i12 Prep BB's afterwards. No 4B to TC AND score big damage off of a NH.

That being said I do lament the loss of certain moves that I think would have been ace in V's new "no one has any real mobility" system.
 
That's crazy also what about SC3 Raph I was curious about him for a good while now?

Note, all moves are listed in SCV commands unless noted otherwise. Everything is also IIRC.

Worse than in SC2. They took away his 22A except after his 4A+B which was critical in step control. They made his 22B a 4B instead and it linked to VE which was an ok stance. They took his SC2 11_77B and made that his 3B which launched but not high enough for combo except on CH I think. So his SC2 3B became 33_99B. They switched to his current 66A instead of his old a6 (which I felt was the most useful command for the move). His 1K was made into a 236K in console and didn't TC IIRC so you would have to delay the 236 advance step and then kick which usually cost the CH it still took to do the move. They did add in his 33KB but IIRC both hits were launch punishable. They still kept his 4A CH but fucked it up so A+BA didn't combo. A+BA no longer launched. No longer delayable. 22_88AA string gone. Current WS A was gone and 33A was his WS A. 4 Prep stances reduced to one, a bastard hybrid of Prep 2 and 3. They didn't give him ANY guard break moves and he had TWO (three in AE) SCUBs and they weren't particularly good ones really (236B was ok but of course avoidable as hell, and 4A+BB became SCUB, or maybe I'm confusing that with SC2, and 66A+B in arcade as if that was gonna land in the 1st place). Since every one lost + frames on generic 2K Raph lost a ton of setups and roachiness. 1A + frames on hit were gone too. I don't think AA was an NC yet. Current FC3B was SC3 WS B and his current WS B gone. Basically Raph's only real hope was to run backwards the whole time BBing and praying for the best.

Overall it was a disaster. They took one of the weaker SC2 characters and ran him through the ringer. It was so bad that I ended up picking up Rock (another disaster), and finally settled on Kilik. SC3 was horseshit.
 
wow that shit is crazy. lol why would you make a slow fencer

Blame Project Soul haha cuz this is pretty ironic. Anyway, Raph may be slower but his range over other characters make him appear "faster". Now that in SCV other characters got range buffs while Raph got his grabbing range nerfed, which should be made longer again in SC6, I concur that they need to speed up some of his moves. (BBB and AA to i15, K to i12, 2K to i14, 4K to i13 etc.). Now Im happy that everybody else got slowed down after SC3.

That's crazy also what about SC3 Raph I was curious about him for a good while now?

He wasn't much faster or better lol, but I feel Bojack is a bit too critical. Im very familiar with SC3 Raph since I played him the most.

Note, all moves are listed in SCV commands unless noted otherwise. Everything is also IIRC.

Worse than in SC2. They took away his 22A except after his 4A+B which was critical in step control.

Agreed.

They made his 22B a 4B instead and it linked to VE which was an ok stance.

Dude that move was more than just ok. It had great range (still does today) and could stop a rushdown or many character's advancing or horizontals moves. Could KND them and guarantee 1BB or 33B even from disadvantage with spacing such as 6K or 6B+K. (6K was godly btw with more pushback and stun on CH allowing a mixup).

They took his SC2 11_77B and made that his 3B which launched but not high enough for combo except on CH I think. So his SC2 3B became 33_99B.

Both moves could lead to decent dmg on CH and could RO on NH. 33B could still hit grounded.

They switched to his current 66A instead of his old a6 (which I felt was the most useful command for the move).

Yeah cuz SC2 66AAB became Prep AAB (didn't jail and third hit wasn't guaranteed on CH but the move did stop step during Prep). Overall, not very good.

His 1K was made into a 236K in console and didn't TC IIRC so you would have to delay the 236 advance step and then kick which usually cost the CH it still took to do the move.

This move still served as an antistep tool. The same move could be done from crouch. In either case it guaranteed a 6A+BA (today's A+BA).

They did add in his 33KB but IIRC both hits were launch punishable. They still kept his 4A CH but fucked it up so A+BA didn't combo. A+BA no longer launched. No longer delayable.

Wtf are you talking about lol (no hostility man). A+BA was 6A+BA back then and it comboed consistently unless they crumbled at a weird angle (3rd hit whiffs) and lead to around 70 dmg. Well at least 6A+BA ROed back then.

22_88AA string gone. Current WS A was gone and 33A was his WS A.

22AA and 22AB were in the game (SC2 33AA/AB) unless you're talking about SC2. His SC2 22AB was moved to 11AB and 44AB (was redundant yet stays the same today). His WSA from SC3 stayed the same in SC4. Hey that move was excellent at stopping step from crouch and with spacing in SC4 was even better.

4 Prep stances reduced to one, a bastard hybrid of Prep 2 and 3. They didn't give him ANY guard break moves and he had TWO (three in AE) SCUBs and they weren't particularly good ones really (236B was ok but of course avoidable as hell, and 4A+BB became SCUB, or maybe I'm confusing that with SC2, and 66A+B in arcade as if that was gonna land in the 1st place).

You're confusing them with SC2 now. One prep stance was fine for me since 4 were too cumbersome and more risky anyway. Only problem with Prep was that nothing was guaranteed and Prep B (236B) was unsafe (236B also). At least Prep B+K and Prep K (8K) were safe and hit mid. SC3 Raph had 44aB as a UB and 4A+B B soul charge UB. He already had autoevades in SC3 and could multievade so I felt no guard break was not so bad. As risky as AEs were, they lead to some juicy Prep NC dmg.

Since every one lost + frames on generic 2K Raph lost a ton of setups and roachiness. 1A + frames on hit were gone too. I don't think AA was an NC yet. Current FC3B was SC3 WS B and his current WS B gone. Basically Raph's only real hope was to run backwards the whole time BBing and praying for the best.

+frames on 2Ks would be considered broken today. It was silly back then to rely on 2Ks. 1A could still hit grounded and tracked to Raph's right. It's been negative for three games and it's not so bad. Most poking lows are - to make the game "balanced". Besides his 2A in SC2/3 had great range and advantage on hit but could be stepped to Raph's left. It was fair enough man. If you think backpeddling and BBing all the time was the way to play him, think again. BB was i14 with +5 on hit, tracking a little bit to his left. Better used as a punisher. He had other offensive moves such as 66B (3B today) and SC3 3B which were safe.

Overall it was a disaster. They took one of the weaker SC2 characters and ran him through the ringer. It was so bad that I ended up picking up Rock (another disaster), and finally settled on Kilik. SC3 was horseshit.

Be happy that SC3 did not have step g. I agree that it had problems since too many characters were broken but I wouldn't call the game a disaster. Raph had strengths back then too but mostly served as a mind game character.
 
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