kro_

I don't understand why Tekken players would play this if it's going to be 2D. And are they really going for chain combos and tag team supers in a game that moves at SF4's pace?

Just saw this thread. I need to start hitting up FFA again and check out those new setups.

Will you be there Thursday evening? I'd like to get in some practice before Friday if possible.

I'm coming to this.

I'm pretty sure that the corner 236a > 5b link is character-specific and/or dependent on spacing. It only works if 236a hits at the last possible moment after a j.2c - and that's not gonna happen against a character with a fat crouching hitbox or if Rachel is too close to the opponent. All of those combos were done on Hazama.

Thanks for linking that set Rhannmah. Actually some new stuff there. That Rachel was doing really well until Bang wised up and mashed 5a during her 4bs. He gave up a ton of damage in favor of stronger oki and was generally successful most of the time. But if you go that route, you'll probably have to land 5-6 combos to kill the opponent rather than the 4 or so if you go for a max damage/zoning style. I wonder whether Bang's new reversal super would have reached or not whenever Rachel ended an air combo with j.2c and meaty 236a. Did he think it just wasn't worth the meter or is it actually too far? And would 236a recover in time if Bang did Daifunka instead on wakeup?

I like her theme song and her voice.

Against a good player, you have to have a dynamic playstyle. CT Rachel can shut down CT Tager through zoning or rushdown. But both styles have holes, and good players will capitalize on them especially with someone who can punish like Tager. I can tell you that I never managed to beat Mike Z when I tried using just one or the other. If rushdown is the only thing working for you, then that either means you are lacking in zoning or the opponent is lacking at dealing with rushdown.

Before jumping. Like 5b 2d9 j.b etc. Rachel doesn't have any normals with good range and recovery. So unless you have pumpkin, frog, or both to create more unorthodox setups, you shouldn't be getting much out of blockstrings besides tick throws and pushing the opponent far enough away so that you don't get punished after 236a. By the way, the best blockstring is 5a/2a 5b sjc 9d throwing lobelias while retreating. I'm serious.

Agree, fresh perspective and all that jazz. Although playing through it might get you better faster, you get burned out quicker.

Yes, it's not guaranteed and life leads/remaining time are a factor. But why not do it when the opportunity presents itself? There's practically no downside to chicken blocking forever now and gaps do occur fairly often even against strong players. When you're blocking in the air, the only thing you need to worry about are crossup shenanigans and airthrows. Mixups are strongest when the opponent is grounded. Storm did this to every strider/doom team around, and it was a lot easier to get super meter for ouroboros than it is for Arakune to get curse meter for fever mode. It's also easier for Rachel to regen wind than it is for Arakune to build up curse meter. It's not like Rachel is great or anything in CS, but she is very capable of forcing Arakune to spend the majority of the time fighting her in gimp mode a.k.a. down to her level.

Even if she does get cursed, she can pull off a runaway storm and avoid dealing with a good chunk of Arakune's fever mode.

Keep in mind that against air covers both ground-to-air and air-to-air situations. Hazama has terrible air-to-air. His best option here is something like jump back j.b and hope for a CH into super. Ground-to-air is different though. I find myself mainly using 5a as an AA with Hazama since it hits high, comes out fast, and combos into 5c 4d regardless of counter hit for an easy 2k dmg and meter gain. 214D~B is great because he moves backwards while doing it. When used as AA, it doesn't give the opponent much time to get a good punish (if they can punish it) because of the distance and the time it takes for them to land after blocking. It sucks as a reversal or against grounded opponents though. 6d is a great anticipatory AA at a distance. If you can read when your opponent will airdash, you will land tons of damage. The obvious counter is to simply run in and 5b him, but if you're fighting one of those opponents that likes to jump up and down and airdash right before landing, 6d is one of the best tools at dealing with it while remaining relatively safe if you whiff. But having good AA options doesn't mean much if you can't make the opponent feel like he has to jump to get in on you. This is his main problem, imo. Threat of random jayoku is the only thing that prevents people from pressuring him endlessly on the ground.

What is Skullgirls?

So I heard bangcamaro, dacid, zong, and render made top 4 when I tuned into the stream this afternoon. GL guys - wish I could watch in person

I expect analysis like this thread only better.

Jin eventually took over Ragna's spot around the time they figured out his 5c j.b j.c j.d combo on standing opponents. People finally learned how to block Ragna's mixup.

I vaguely remember this tier list when I first started playing. It was shortly after Tokido popularized Arakune's 6c loop and before Nu came out. All I know is that before that, Ragna was consistently top tier and shortly after that, people figured out Rachel frog combo setups. S: Arakune A: Ragna B: Litchi, Noel, Rachel B-: Jin, Tao, Bang C: Tager D: Carl

To get close enough to get the full 6 hits on BBL.

I do remember getting something like a 60 game win streak when the game first came out

Anyone know if Nathan still works there? The few times I've been he hasn't been around.

Rachel's 6a still has guardpoint. Check here @0:15 you can clearly hear the sound Jin's j.b makes with 6a before he gets beat out. However, it still loses out or trades to more attacks than in CT. Might have something to do with the level of the attack and the clashing system. When the frame data gets translated, then we can be sure.

I'll try and get my skills back up to speed before this goes down.

Hakumen's new j.c is great for tagging her to get rid of pumpkin and frog and a CH 4c puts her in stun long enough for him to get closer, but they don't really guarantee a full combo's worth of damage. His damaging mixups are still slow and easy to block too. The barriers don't really help him zone Rachel unless she's in the corner, and by that time she should be focused on using wind to switch sides. She even gets to keep the lightning rods that bounce off of the barrier and they tend to land at very effective locations. In my experience, Hakumen players were the ones most prone to running into lightning in CT. It should be even easier to do that now with midair sword iris. 6a is still useful and 236b/c are as good as ever too. Just don't expect to get a chance to make use of pumpkin often. So basically, her zoning is still a huge problem for him, but his damage output and the slight improvements to his approach overshadow that enough to give him a slight matchup advantage. Well, that and Rachel's inability to do brute-force mixup into knockdown into corner rape anymore.