LiteSabre

If you have good reflexes, you can 623A a guard cancel on reaction. It's a huge float + 1 star, jump up to spike for another star (the 623A has grave shoot properties on CH), come down to combo into blowback for another star. Feel like humiliating the opponent? Take out all his stars, wait for a guard cancel and 236CD. The upper-body super armor will ignore the guard cancel and IK the opponent.

Check the combo that starts at 02:50 in 20060417-6.wmv. That's why he's called King of the Fist. *laughs* Sick stuff.

As last seen in the recent vids: If Raoh gets his air sai (or ground, but the situation mostly occurs in the air sai) in the opponent when they're in the corner, the opponent gets pushed away much faster than if he was sai-ed in the field, keeping Raoh from mashing 2A as much as he usually does. In order to combat that, Raohs now use 2A 2B C CD when in the corner, then autoboost 2C IAD j.B 214D to re-sai in a position slightly outside the corner, allowing them to continue their combos normally. If you don't understand what I mean, check the most recent vids on the vid thread. :P

It's not counted in the star limit.

I dunno if this is what you mean, but there's no height restraint for IAD in this game, which means that all characters can iad extremely low to the ground. Good examples of this are Raoh and Toki. They have very short air dashes, so they start falling quicker than, say, Rei. Raoh in particular starts to fall as soon as he finishes his starting airdash animation, so that might be what you saw.

For the spike: Air spike has 2 frames of leniency to connect a 2A afterwards. Ground spike and burning ground spike are much easier, somewhere along the lines of 4 to 5 frames? The Rei infinite is extremely easy, and there're a surprising amount of situations where it can go in (sit confirm far D boost 214D). A more damaging version of the blowback combo is: CD, autoboost far D, AC, TK 236C(boost), 2C, j.B(rising), j.B(falling), 214D, 2A,2B,C,AC, blahblahblah. The height which the grave shoot floats to is entirely based on the air combo height acheived prior to the grave shoot, which is why it's hard to do after you've already done an air spike before. In this case, it floats to almost normal height, allowing you to mash more hits in. Also, if you have trouble doing the low air spike after a previous air spike or musou insatsu, try C->2C->AC to float instead of just C->AC. 2C bounces the opponent into the air, making the grave shoot hit the opponent in midair, giving you just that little bit more leeway.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned Raoh cancelling far D into CD in the vids, which is normally impossible. It allows Raoh to use his ludicrously damaging blowback wall bounce combo almost anywhere on the screen, which is very good for Raoh. Less good for the opponent. Normally, far D can't combo into CD. However, it DOES combo into 2D, which in turn combos into CD. It's a kara cancel from 2D to CD. You have to do it fairly quickly, but it doesn't seem to be as strict as, say, SF3's. Also remember that a successful CD ground hit gives you an automatic 1 bar of boost to use to pursue, even if you normally have 0 boost. For the defense, HnK has defense and offense ratings. Raoh is highest in both of these, which means he has the highest amount of defense and his normals do more damage compared to other characters. Thouther has the worst defense rating. About damage scaling: There seems to be no prorating at all in this game, so combos do the same amount of damage whether they start from, say, close C as opposed to 2B. Damage scaling seems to be entirely based on number of hits, which is why that far D -> CD combo is so much more useful than the far D -> 623C combo which Raohs normally used before. When charged up with Donryokuhou, all of Raoh's C attacks and his 2D can be charged. j.C, close C and far C blow back. 2C floats the opponent high, and can be jump cancelled. 2D floats the opponent towards you, just at the right angle for a grave shoot. Also remember that C to IK is a late cancel, and if you don't want to risk it, you can always do C->2D->IK (hits in the air) or C->CD->autoboost IK.