Kuuhaku

I'll do my best to not suck with Rachel. Even if she is in a wheel chair. ... Just for when I want to win, I'll also be playing Arakune and Carl (or Hazama).

Guard crushing in this game is extremely useless. Plus, the moves that can remove guard primer in that block string are both unsafe on block. Even if she guard crushes, you're looking at probably 2kish damage or less. Lambda and Litchi > Rachel's GP game.

It can be comboed into itself. The damage is pretty lol though. Probably the only major use is how late the King George hit comes because it catches people off guard. But even then that's kinda gimmicky and even then Rachel can't do anything with that hit. As CS Rachel, your job is to annoy them with random pokes while running the hell away until 10 seconds are left. Then you use four winds to float to the top of the screen and win.

My bad. If it helps, I haven't been able to do it against anyone else. No, we didn't trade though. It was really weird.

Don't tech and wait for them to whiff the command grab. That works against most. When Bang whiffs a grab, it leaves him wide open so that should give you enough time to tech and get in his face for it. Overall, you don't want to be tech happy against Bangs. There's actually not all that much they can do to you while you're knocked down (they can like poke at you and stuff, but nothing that leads to a lot of damage, if they go for a super you have more than enough time to tech and barrier guard). The command grab nonsense comes from tricking you into teching predictably.

As for her counter assault, I'm not sure if this is a reliable strategy, but since 5CC tracks (if they go behind you, the second C will automatically turn you around), I've hit a few Noels who tried to CA with this. Her 3C is also a free punish on IB. And when she goes for that weird twirly grab, Rachel can duck under it.

2C is still really risky to use, even with faster start up because you can still block it on reaction and smack Rachel for even thinking about using such a lulz tactic. I did the really basic 6A combo and netted barely 1.8k damage. Lobelia was still decent until they pulled out a projectile and then were kept pretty much safe because you couldn't keep an awaiting Iris right under them. To get them under rods, I had to purposely reposition myself vs. CT where my focus was on positioning the rods. I didn't get to try out 2A much because most of the time I was busy defending or running away to keep out of pressure. The only time I really got to be aggressive was in a Rachel mirror and even then I got a kill in with about 12 seconds left on the clock. It's... kind of sad that Rachel literally needs the entire clock to kill an opponent that isn't as gimped as she is (which is the entire cast).

I played CS Rachel last night. And she feels playable and is fun to play... until you look at your opponent's health bar and realize you're doing like no damage. Sliding George forward and forcing them to block him is a good way to get pumpkin out safely. And for Rachel to actually kill someone she needs the whole 99 seconds. By being super aggressive I managed to kill someone when the clock was at 12 seconds left. Also- I need to weed 6B. There were a few combos I dropped because out of habit I did 5B B. BBL damage is sad. I hit someone with two rods at one point and still did tears worthy damage. I agree with what ryoko said in that Rachel needs better ways of getting in against an opponent. But at the same time I think if she did a decent amount of damage, it'd make that long uphill battle of landing a solid hit at least worth it.

j2C doesn't normal cancel on hit either. I believe it can on CH, but that's about it.

Question: What does Rachel have against Carl to make the match up a 4:6? Because from the Rachel vs. Carl matches I've seen, Carl's just been like- K. It's raping tiem now.

That was truly pro.

Arcsys. And... well... it may be more balanced than CT. We'll have to see how things pan out. ATM there's still bottom tier has snowball chance in hell against top tier... or in Rachel's case, snowball chance in hell against most of the cast. But... I've heard one Rachel player say she can still win competatively, just it's a really long and tedious uphill battle to get there. It's not like Tager who can chance into one massive damage combo and capitalize on mistakes for the win. For Rachel to win, the opponent has to make many many mistakes. Also, I thought massive damage and crushing opponents suited the cold hearted bitch personality she has. That's just me though. People in the game who know of her are supposed to be reasonably threatened. Hell, she can keep Hakumen on a leash no problem vs. Kokonoe who had a problem with Haku wandering off. Now you have to wonder how that works with the way she is now. Maybe Rachel threatened to castrate him?

And then doing damage from that hit becomes her problem because even with hit, you're looking at a max of 3k damage with heat... unless they feel like standing under three poles for fun.

A player named RoboAlex has the CS machine. Other than that, there's a CT machine at Gameworks in Seattle (though the B button is busted on the second cab) and the Acme Bowl in Tukwila has CT as well. You can check out the Pacific Northwest thread in the Match Finder forum.

Rachel would be the only character I've ever seen get Astral Finished in a tourney. Also in that match, common combo into super did like 1.8k damage.

There's a reason why people are joking that CS only has thirteen characters.

Last time I checked, in CS three poles + her does 3.6k damage. Not exactly massive. It's more than pretty much all of her ground combos though.

Is there any combo for Rachel that isn't complete crap damage wise?

More like if only that was her only problem.

She can use air iris during air combos, just requires a bat pole to already be placed. Overall, the videos for Rachel are far and few and the only ones I've seen her winning are against bad players. I'd like to see someone from Game Chariot play her, but that's not likely... Not a video, but vaguely CS Rachel related. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwT_wT6CgsE Her new CS theme song (or what should be).

Teching time is shorter for jC last time I checked. But jC does combo into BBL.

Will it keep Rachel safe from air attacks? Also... anything Rachel does is silly and/or low damage.

Apparently the PNW is having a CS launch party next week. XD Maybe you can swing by there?

But it bounces off of ice swords! ... Does it still take them out? I don't remember. Also- Soniti, could you make a compilation for the final changes to CS Rachel? I'm having a hard time keeping track of the large pile of bad she is.

I didn't know the no super armor. How am I supposed to troll ice sword throwing Jin's now?