Raphael Strategies and Tactics

[Real_Bojack]

[notice]This is now the new Raphael Strategies and Tactics thread.

I compiled all the old threads that Real_Bojack created since there was no need for them to be separate threads when they could all be in one places. Please discuss similar ideas in here instead of making a new thread.

- Mage[/notice]

As of now there's only his 22k BT JF. The timing is like, right when he puts his foot down or something like that. Just horse around with it, you'll get it!

 

[Real_Bojack]

He has B+K, A+K, 214 (B) , and 1A+B, 8A+B also. Also has a counter off of his 236. I'll explain more later.

--=CROUCH DASH COUNTER=--

How does his 236 counter WORK? Easy as pie is how it works!

Most people think it just comes out against H attacks. Well, it WILL do that but why? An astute Raph will also notice that at times it comes out when no H's have been used. So WTF Namco?!?!!

Ok, when Raph is in the middle of his crouch dash, he gets a smattering of "ghost hit boxes" and for some reason when Raph is able to rub these hit boxes against an opponent in "cool down" (BOJACK HATES THIS TERMS WE HATES THIS HOBBITSSSESSSS BUT IT SERVES US NOW IT SERVES US) after whiffing basically any attack, the counter will come out. Naturally since he is in crouch dash it will trigger vs. H's since well, he's in TC and the H whiffs. The whiff frames from the opp are the important part here.

The counter looks just like SCV FC3B for those of you keeping score at home but isn't quite as fast and doesn't knock down if I recall.

There's a chance I'm wrong and it's some other mechanic but from my testing ten years ago this was what I remember about this. I had to test it a bunch to figure out how to keep it FROM coming out because it's fairly ass, although it does have a good deal of knock back on CH and it may even track decently, perhaps on ring edge it may have better use.

Also, this means Raph is the only character in the game to my knowledge who can beat some one using stick alone.................. neat!

===Auto Evades===

A+K = Spiral Envelopment, Evades L's and M's.
B+K = Circular Envelopment, Evades H's and M's.

Ah Auto Evades, one of my favorite parts of playing Raph. When
pressing B+K or A+K Raph will either wave the tip of his sword in
one circle (A+K which evades M's and L's) or swing his whole sword
around once (B+K which eavdes H's and M's).

Upon being hit while in these stances he will AUTOMATICALLY dodge
the attack. He can then attack out of his auto evade. These are
EXTREMELY powerful tools and any Raph player pretty much needs to
know them well to be effective.

How do they work?
This was a question I used to ask every time I tried them out. I
didn't know what was going on and it was a while before I was able
to get a good handle on them.

A Successful Auto Evades will have three Phases,

Phase One Start Up,
Pressing A+K or B+K puts Raphael in Auto Evade stance. Once the
buttons are pressed Raph can evade attacks instantly, they are active
from frame 0 meaning you don't even have to see Raph go into stance
for them to work. If the game receives the signal for Raph to go into
Auto Evade even a tenth of a second before he gets hit, he will auto
evade. This feature of their speed makes them great reactionary tools.

Phase Two Evade,
Now while being attacked in Auto Evade stance, Raph will NOT be hit
by the attack that initiates the Auto Evade. He will some how evade
it (hence the name) and he will either duck backwards or do a near
instant side step, or he might jump over the attack (not to be
confused with actual jumps or fuzzy guarding) or whatever he does
to avoid it.

Phase Three Attack,
After Raph has evaded the attacks he can attack. Different attacks
will come out of A, B, and K respectively so in this respect they
are very Auto Counterish. It is even possible to enter Prep C after
an Auto Evade allowing for more coolness.

**Extended B+K Evade**
Doing certain moves then buffering B+K will result in Raph spinning his
Rapier about 5 times. If at this time he's hit M or H he Auto Evades.
Known Moves that lead to extended B+K,
A+B
66A
8WR 8 (NOT2) B

**Linking A+K's**
If timed right, you can link two A+K's together.
The purpose of these is obviously what you do after people learn to
recognize Auto Evades to they'll pause, then try and fail to hit him.

There, that's enough of Auto Evades. Go out and get some sun. Maybe even some puss (or wang if you're a girl).

 

[Real_Bojack]

Post here how you like to deal with particularly troublesome strings! The good news is that we've many more options to dealing with them again!

Since AE's work from frame 1 or something, we've the ability to use it vs. strings. So if any one has the game (like me perhaps) they could start some basic research on it.

 

[Real_Bojack]

Post it here! I'll flesh this out more later!

Soul Charge Canceling...... canceling the recover frames of a move into a soul charge.

Raph has 3 of them.

6BB A+B+K
FC3 AA A+B+K
33{A}~B+K

Most people will write out the 33A SCC as 33A A+B+K but I could NEVER get it to work like that. At any rate, I feel the 6BB was most overall useful SCC. I have heard that 33A SCC was the best one to use back in the day from some people. Both 6BB and FC3AA can be done like a normal jf string with really loose timing so you don't have to be 1 frame accurate.

I'm personally inclined to stay away from the FC3AA SCC because it telegraphs itself so bad and unless the 1st hit hits CH they can crouch the 2nd hit so Raph'll be kicked in the head well before he can do anything after the SCC.

3B 6BB A+B+K opens up a ton of shizzle fo nizzle for Raphizzle.

As with everything, use with caution.

 

[GreatOne1939]

-6B,B~A+B+K
-FC 3A,A~A+B+K
-8WR 3_9A~A+B+K
-3B~A+B+K

Also there's a group of guys who have been streaming SC2 for awhile now in Seattle. I remember the guy who runs the stream, Tyler, specifically going over Raph SCCs. You can fish through the archives (I think it was about a month ago) and see some of these things in action here: www.twitch.tv/relytgg

 

[Real_Bojack]

When did 3B get an SCC?

Edit: Spent some time last night trying to get SCC off of 3B and it didn't happen once. If you have a trick for it please, do tell.

 

[COMmon]

Is this like cervantes's BT B+K from 3k and 4kk?

 

[Real_Bojack]

Is this like cervantes's BT B+K from 3k and 4kk?

It is except Raph lacks similarly intimidating BT moves. Also, Raph has to guess or risk a trade off when he goes for it because 22K on CH leads to strong damage. You can't really hit confirm (I never could). But he DOES have a proper BT JF. I was the one who discovered it too! [/self pander/promotion].

I gotta bust the game out and do more research on the potential of Raph's BT JF.

 

[Real_Bojack]

I can't believe I forgot this!

THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!!!! *cough* errrm, Four Preps. You get into them by pressing and holding the attack button on a move that enters Prep.

Prep I
Prep II
Prep III
Prep IV

The naming convention is brilliant I tell ya!

OMG for the first time in a decade Bojack has BRAND NEW Raph tech! Brand new, and I'm not even gonna use any five dollar words to talk about it either.

Prep IV B causes Raph's sword to glow yellow or green (I'm color blind, no I don't see in grayscale thanks for asking) and he will slowishly pull the sword back to neutral after the stab. Here's the interesting part, if, at ANY time the sword is still glowing, pressing 2 or 8 will cause Raph to go into Prep spin back to Prep II. Even if you press the button for a single frame and have NO intention of going back into Prep. The interesting part is that you can delay the spin for quite a few frames.

Not Earth shattering but brand new. Ten years later and I'm still learning SC2 Raph quirks.

 

[crow_winters]

I'm unsure if this is a the thread for it, but one of the things I loved most about SC2 Raph was getting access to BT 2A when people tried to step my preps. I don't really remember the exact circumstances or properties, but it happened /a lot/ and was always wonderful.

 

[Real_Bojack]

I'm unsure if this is a the thread for it, but one of the things I loved most about SC2 Raph was getting access to BT 2A when people tried to step my preps. I don't really remember the exact circumstances or properties, but it happened /a lot/ and was always wonderful.

It is most certainly is the place for it. It is really cool and thank you very much for reminding me about this neat trait.

 

[Mage]

[notice]The Raphael Soul Arena had too many threads which were of similar topics when they could all have be compiled; this thread will be the place where they will be discussed.

Multiple threads have been merged into this one. Please only make new threads if you are absolutely sure it merits its own thread. [/notice]

 

[Real_Bojack]

Well every one, the game is out, but I cannot edit my own posts so I won't be able to clean or add to the mess that I started. I dunno if I'll even end up getting the game now that certain things have come to light. If some one really wants me to work more on my stuff I will (just for you too!) or I can PM or something and I'll hunt down mods to help me edit my own material (not editing posts is almost as puzzling as Namco using PAL for SC2 HD).

 

[Egg]

Well well well, It has been a longgggg Time since Ive made a post about Soul calibur 2 Rapheal :).

Im going thrugh his frame data at this time and Im finding some interesting tricks I totaly missed the first time around with this game.

I just found a G2 cancel off of Prep 4.
It was tricky to test but I was able to make sure this is real before I posted this. On paper I found so far

A~G2 - If you time the 2 correctly, you will be able to defend fast attacks such as Yoshis AA. If you use G alone you will not be able to block.

Ok back to the lab. I will post more litte tricks when I find them.

 

[Real_Bojack]

So if you Prep IV~ Prep I you can G2 sooner than regular guard? Nice to know and a bummer we missed it ten years ago. Perhaps it was a PAL only deal?

 

[piggy]

So if you Prep IV~ Prep I you can G2 sooner than regular guard? Nice to know and a bummer we missed it ten years ago. Perhaps it was a PAL only deal?

It is probably just part of the overall G2 bullshit in this game.

For SCCs, FC 3 AA SCC can be used in a combo with 6BB SCC if you want to make people rage online. 66A+B, FC 3AA SCC 6BB SCC for some glowing hotness! (NOTE - I cannot guarantee this works at this time, but on high launches, this used to work (or, it could have been the SCCs were in the other order, but muscle memory says I'm wrong).

Raph's poke game is super good because he has one of the best 2K in the game. 2K / WR B / 6B will get you far. When in doubt, press 2K. Trust me.

 

[Real_Bojack]

Not a/c-able?

 

[piggy]

No, it was guaranteed - I haven't had a chance to remind myself, though, living in my car I have not yet had the ability to practice. I think it also worked on 236A+B (CH?). You needed the high launch. I actually edited my original post since I cant be 100% of this as of yet.

 

[SilentWall]

Just tested it. 100% confirmed.
Raphael has G2-Recovery on those moves:
33B
66B
Last B of 6BBB
Second B of 1A+B B:B
a6
PrepIII>6A
*** Player can activate it in around 30 frames recovery windows after the impact frame.
*** It has around 12 frames of guard ability. (Just roughly count, need more test.)
*** Player can also do slightly step in recovery of those moves.

However, I think PrepIV and A have no G2-Recovery.

Raphael's Auto-Evade Frame Data:
B+K evades high and mid (1st to 19th frame)
A+K evades mid and low (1st to 26th frame)

Raphael is a low tier?