[CS1] Rachel vs Valkenhayn

[Jason D.]

This is for discussing the Rachel vs Valkenhayn match-up in BB:CS. Teach him to stay in the kitchen.

[Jason D.]

I, like many of you, have not played a lot of high-level Valks at this point, but here's some initial impressions to get this rolling.

For starters, he can't block while in wolf form. Now that should be common knowledge already, but keep in mind how you can use this as Rachel. For one, when you're zoning him, he can't simply wolf-charge forward. He'll have to try to old-man-hop his way through. It also means that random poles and other traps around the stage can be pretty devastating for him if he likes to stay in wolf form for whatever reason.

At mid-range, his 5B will definitely own you. It's about the same distance as your 6B, and twice the speed. Respect his range. And don't worry, because blocking isn't a big deal anyway. More on that later. Additionally, do note that there is no way in hell you're going to anti-air his jump-ins. Not with that j.C. Don't even try.

Now, when you are blocking something, so far I haven't been noticing a great mix-up game from Valk. All his stuff is pretty predictable. Which means you should also be Instant Blocking this stuff. A good IB will turn any of his "safe" strings (like his 236A) into your advantage, it makes any of his less safe strings into a free punish, and it also makes any wolf-transform-cancels into an easy counter-hit for you

And keep in mind that he has no reversals outside of his super, so if he doesn't have the meter, feel free to rush him down all you want.

[choysauce]

i feel like this match may be in rachels favor? i've played a few valks who were pretty good, although it is true he's still in the developmental stages. but the way that people are playing him right now, rachel can zone him out pretty badly.

unless he airdashes over it, A lobelias + wind, he can't do anything about them, unless he's within his 5B or 5C range.

i don't remember if his j.C will beat out 6A, but i'm sure its not as bad as hakumen's ridiculous hitboxes.

and as for his mixups, the only one i've noticed that i have to remember myself is his C dash move that launches. since it's an overhead you cant just keep holding downback. so just start blocking high after his string, cuz i believe his low option comes out really slow.

but after valk's C dash, everyone always opts to wolf cancel 9D to continue a combo or try to get out, since it can cancel on block.

you can probably just throw out 6A CH to catch them. but definitely better to IB and just punish accordingly

lol, and remember to block his whole super. keeps going even on block, and you get a guard bonus! i'm sure at least a couple people won't know about this aspect of the super.

[unsanctifier]

This match is going to require spending a lot of time looking at heat and the arena as much as looking at Valk.

His blockstrings can be IB'd if you take care of them properly like Jason brought up. But if he has 50+ heat, you're going to be stuck for a while looking at mixups and watching your primers fall.

You want to keep a lot of your crap lying outside (loebilas, pumpkin, geoerge) 'cause once he's in wolf form, he's going to get destroyed by ALL OF THIS. So he'll try this once or twice, then just rely on old man hopping. When he realizes this, he's going to air-dash in and use that J.C of his to foafhaosdfasdfoaise own every fucking thing we have. My suggestion if you want to punish that, would be to super jump 8 or wind jump 8 the moment you see him jump and if he dashes forward, depending on the distance C loebbbzzzz, or j2.c his face right off. This will lead to MASSIVE DAMAGE (massive in rachel's point of view at least).

To sum it up, spam your zoning tools (loebila and pumpkin for wolf mode, frog for human mode), spam ranged attacks on wolf, frogs and punishes for human mode, DON'T LET THAT NIGGER GET ALL UP IN YOU.

O btw, this fight is a great example of SPACING. You want all of the space from him possible His regulars beat your pokes and unlike rachel, his abare exists.

(My first time posting in one of these threads, was this shit actually helpful?)

[TD]

This nigga scary up close.

But yea it's like this. FAR RANGE is Rachel's favor hands down. Zoning is hella fun in this match. BUT he can still do a risky wolf charge at us, which is very dangerous if he succeeds because then it leads to

CLOOOOSE RANGEEEEE:vbang:

Valk owns you in this twisted little battle. We can ib and get out pretty easily (so far) but if you fuck up... -5k.

lt's still in valks favor though. He got huge damage with stupid normals and we have neither. He will get to us at some point..

[Kuuhaku]

If you're going to try to get out with IB, do NOT do anything other than 5A. He'll smack you for it (unless he has no idea what he's doing). Though even on IB, most of the time he has time to block 5A because lololol + frames.

He's like Bang on crack. But luckily, he doesn't have D nails so he can't also out zone you too. Getting hit by this guy sucks balls. His damage is good and he can guard crush pretty easily if you're not careful.

Because he doesn't have any real answer to rods when Rachel's full screen and Rachel's 5A makes her one of the few characters that can get out of his bullshit on IB, I'd say this match up is 6-4 in Valk's favor.

His damage and normals kick you in the face. Try to keep this guy out with zoning and IB + 5A is your best friend here.

Random note: Oh, and his overhead kick that's really slow. As tempting as it is to 2C that, don't. He'll wolf cancel it and make you cry~ I'm not sure if you can 6A it on reaction (6A might be active enough to hit him if he wolf cancels). I've been too scared to try.

[STenSatsu]

Since nobody discusses Valk matchups in his forums I'll discuss it here I guess lol. Feels like at least 6-4 Rachels favor. Wind, lobelia, pumpkin, and george make it hell. It really feels like you have to get pretty lucky as Valk to win it since he almost never gets in range to do his wolf mixups and even with the wolf mixups you don't get much damage unless Rach gets hit asap. He can't punish anything that you can cancel into lobelia either unless he supers.

[GenoWhirl]

Coming from a Valk main

Yes, I think if you play a Zoning Rachel the advantage is hers.

Really the only way you have to get in is abusing ballsy shit and taking potshots at Rachel. Then she can just IAD away and begin all over again unless you're at the corner.

But when you DO get her in the corner she's dead

Like

In one combo

[unsanctifier]

Yeah Geno, that's how the game will be played. Silly Rachel zoning and patient or brave Valk movement...

I love match-ups like this.

(Lol, women telling men to stay in the kitchen)

[TD]

Zone him to death, literally.

Her best matchup? Well, there's Tsubaki...

[GenoWhirl]

Now we know why Valk is Rachel's bitch

[Alex073088]

honestly all you really have to do is keep approaching and block. And if you approach from the air(high above the ground) you can get past her zoning. Espically if you jump over the arc of a lobelia and strike her in the recovery form, or just block. Its not hard getting in on rachel. i Know valkenhayn lacks a run or an easy anti zone tool(slegde/sparkbolt/makotos super/a barrier or void/ nails/guardpoints/) but he can still get in. the match-up is not no 6-4 rachel favors. Mu-12/lamada/arakune/carl/hazama/ all have better zoning then rachel. And somehow every one is claiming that valkenhayn is overpowered.....

[STenSatsu]

Zone him to death, literally.

Her best matchup? Well, there's Tsubaki...

Way easier to beat Rach as Tsu imo. Valks dash and inability to block asap after coming out of wolf charge kills him.

[K2]

this is wt i think

valk can come in easy with wolf form both from air and ground.

ground approch is fairly easy to deal with. Your lobellia and iris will do the job. The problem comes when he is in the air. Wolf allows him to travel full screen, so you can't zone him out. He be in your face sooner or later.

His JC Beats rachel's 6a ( yes wtf, nerf that salyer shit plz), which means u cannot anti air him and he WILL get close to you in the game no matter wt you do.

now, he is here and he doesn't need to be close, his 5b is god like. it will CH u before your lobellia comes out. u can't do anything except for running around.

once his 5b touches u is over, his game will now hunt hime-same

his block sting are +f or safe on block. except for the mini BBU, u can throw and mash 5a agsint that, remeber is a high. but that bulter aren't stuipid. he can do the regular tackle or does that low kicks.

for tackle, all u can do is instant block it, and 5a punlish him. if u don't IB u can't do shit and he can spam his string until u are impaitent and mash and die. don't be too happy, cuz he can chose to block after u IB his move =w=

so be paitent, block everything, gain some meter, IB that tackle punlish it and get away. rmb, u can't anti air valk's JC

this match up is NOT THAT bad , i would say 5.5-4.5

since valk can always come in and eventually u are going to get hit and eat a 4-5k combo( well come on, no one doesn't get hit, when u get hit by valk u lose). he is not gonna allow u to hit him mulitple times for 1.5k.

the way to not lose is to drop ur stick and go home.

Edited November 15, 2010 by K2

[Alex073088]

k2, i love you! And i love your post! espically the part where it says hes not goign to keep letting you hit him with 1.5k.

And for the valkenhayn player posint in here, if the match is that hard due to zoning alone then quite honestly i think the rachel player may just be alot better then you right now.

[unsanctifier]

Guys, can't we just say this is a lot like the Ragna match-up and just end it.

[STenSatsu]

k2, i love you! And i love your post! espically the part where it says hes not goign to keep letting you hit him with 1.5k.

And for the valkenhayn player posint in here, if the match is that hard due to zoning alone then quite honestly i think the rachel player may just be alot better then you right now.

Uh, you do know that lobelia will hit his wolf dashes right? He has to get super fancy with wolf dashes and you an usually just dash to the other side in that case because he has to wolf dash to the top of the screen and then back down at you. Lobelias cover every angle of his airdash, regular dash, and wolf dash unless you are already in her face. Though SuperGogeta is probably the best Rachel I've seen outside of snoozingdonuts and I don't imagine many others have as much Valk xp as he does.

We're pretty even at worst given I go pretty even against him as Tsu. I know a lot of Rachel players want to believe that nothing she has could ever be good, but her zoning game is still very good.

[mikenapalm]

After playing against my friends pretty scrub valk for a good couple of hours:

Sj.dcd got him over my ground lobelias. I tried to wind them up to hit him but he just moves so fast. Might be bad reaction time on my part. I got punished pretty hard for it.

Trying to iris it worked pretty decent on if you zap before the flip. After the flip, It felt too slow to catch him moving regardless of pole setups.(usually had one close, one mid, and one far) The iris animation is short too so I could block if he did end up next to me.

I abused the hell out of 236A against him though. Just in 5B range it just stopped his most of his attempts to move in. 236a/b/c, 6c, dash, wolf. It traded with 5B(I think? Is it the one that crumples?) sometimes but nothing he could work with.

I was able to use cat chair pretty stupidly on reaction to some things. Mostly 6C(didn't know he could wolf cancel not on hit D=) and 236A. Pretty sure I hit 236a without ib on the 5b 5c 236a string. Sometimes the move after it but wouldn't recommend it since he can tick throw.

Match feels very even. Valk has to not let Rachel zone and can get good damage meterless and with meter shuts down her whole close game. But Rachel can play keep away all day and I was able to get some bigger damage from stacked poles due to throwing so much shit out. Which hurts a lot on valks kinda stamina. Set up oki when he doesn't have meter and go for damage when he does.

My CS Rachel is still pretty scrub so I'm probably wrong about a few things.

Edited November 16, 2010 by mikenapalm

[GenoWhirl]

k2, i love you! And i love your post! espically the part where it says hes not goign to keep letting you hit him with 1.5k.

And for the valkenhayn player posint in here, if the match is that hard due to zoning alone then quite honestly i think the rachel player may just be alot better then you right now.

Fair enough, should get more EXP under my belt before commenting on match-ups (lol ~1-2 months of exp)

[TD]

Because thats obviously not enough

[GenoWhirl]

When 80% of it is training mode instead of actual matches, yes it's not nearly enough.

[K2]

valk is obviously over powered

when training mode Lv10 gives u 6k dmg combo, thats rediculous

ppl is gonna expand that and make it 8k in the future, why arcsys so fail and doesn't think of that?

ah...i know

make it broken and ppl plays it looks kool, so everyone will buy the DLC and make money

they need that money to make loketest 5

icic, busniess, all scammers

[TD]

They... already have found 9k.

In fact if valk didn't have problems against zoners he'd be hands down best. Well yeah l think this match is 6-4 valk, but really rachel -can- zone him, to death. its crazy.

[gli]

This feels like another Taokaka type match when he has Wolf meter. Except it really really hurts when he gets in and does combos (a really mobile Slayer if you will lol).

I fought someone on XBL named "atomicoffspring" and he won 5 straight matches on me. Tried zoning but once he found one hole in my game it was all over. The most common way he got in was high-jump wolf change C ... w/e

Edited January 10, 2011 by glirandly

[tofurr]

Pulsr is a beast, that's why.

Zoning and keep away are the best answers to this match-up from the few Valks that I've played who knew what they were doing.