Raiden F+2 Wakeup Option Selects

[KH StarCharger]

I've always said that if there is any aspect of this game that Raiden excells in it's in Respect. Respect of his footsies, Teleport, Armor, and his speed. However, when all of these aspects are coupled in trying to slow your opponent down when they are on the ground, things such as the 12 frames of invincibility on wake up as well as armor can impare your game when you want to go for some Oki game. As such, I was spending time in the lab asking how I could use raidens elusive options to my advantage on a downed opponent intending to use the above mentioned wake up invincibility against me and possibly blow me up when such opporitunities arise. While using Raidens B+3, Standing 3, and his standing 2, I had no consistent luck in trying to counter my opponent. However, with the quick F+2, empty buffered into either the teleport, enhanced shocker, or the enhanced electric fly (superman), I was in business.

http://www.twitch.tv/kombathouston/b/354437953

In watching the stream link after the insomnia tournament, move to 3:27:40 to get to the beginning where I use the above mentioned options on Seraph who was using sonya to exclusively prove the use of this tech against armored wake up attacks or elusive wake up attacks. From the F+2 empty buffer, you can buffer any option, and depending on the matchup and the properties of every character's wake up attack, you can use which ever option suits you the best in that situation. In spite of how useful this is, there are risks associated with this:

Teleport)
Pros: Safe, quick start up that will evade most wake ups in the game when delayed or when buffered directly, Can open up SERIOUS whiff punishing on wake ups that completely miss.
Cons: Can land you in trouble if you get too obvious with your approach.

Enhanced Shocker)
Pros: Will beat out ANY armored option in the game that advances toward Raiden on Wake up, you can follow it up and set your opponent up for another setup of your choice (oki, enhanced lightning, etc.), some attacks (certain wake up teleports), will hit the armor and Raiden won't go into hitstun.
Cons: -23 when blocked and even worse when whiffed, takes up a bar of meter that may come in handy down the road if wasted on a bad guess. Some wake up specials can evade this move and really leave Raiden open for some punishment.

Enhanced Superman)
Pros: Fast start up that will force raiden through certain attacks such as evasion teleports (can be autocorrected) and Ice Clones,
Cons: if it goes against another armored move, raiden will either get beat out or get cannonball recovery and be wide open for ALOT of punishment, Not useful againt other armored attacks on wake up.

Your best options will vary depending on the match up, however, with the rare ability to stuff and potentially eliminate people's wake up game in matches, Raiden's respect levels will soon be on the rise when these options from his F+2 are taken to the next level in competitive play. Feel free to explore this option and to comment and let me know what you think.

 

[killa_solid]

I am kinda confused. How are these option selects? Does the follow up to f2 not come out if your opponent decides to not wake up with anything?

 

[KH StarCharger]

I am kinda confused. How are these option selects? Does the follow up to f2 not come out if your opponent decides to not wake up with anything?

These are OS' such that, your opponent, should they not only wake up, but get up at all after a knock down, will be hit by the F+2 and using the "empty buffer", I can chose my options from those listed above to either beat out their attack, or to get myself to safety. Although, if they stay downed and play possum if you will, the F+2 will not hit them (depending on their hitbox), and your option will not come out resulting in basically a reset situation where they have to guess when the right time to get up is, which in this case deals raiden another advantage in the fight with out him having to feel the need to gamble his meter or his health to blow the possum up. I hope that helps.

 

[The Green Machine]

I was wondering what you were talking about last night lol

 

[killa_solid]

These are OS' such that, your opponent, should they not only wake up, but get up at all after a knock down, will be hit by the F+2 and using the "empty buffer", I can chose my options from those listed above to either beat out their attack, or to get myself to safety. Although, if they stay downed and play possum if you will, the F+2 will not hit them (depending on their hitbox), and your option will not come out resulting in basically a reset situation where they have to guess when the right time to get up is, which in this case deals raiden another advantage in the fight with out him having to feel the need to gamble his meter or his health to blow the possum up. I hope that helps.

I see, Thx for the explanation. I was confused since I had the street fighter oriented option selects in mind where by your input will result in two different outcomes based on your opponent's actions and the better option in your favor is selected by the computer.

 

[4x4lo8o]

This is really good stuff. The best part about it is f2~teleport is -2 on block, so even if they just stand up and block you're completely safe

Thanks for this. I saw MikeMetroids post about this stuff a while back but couldn't figure out how to apply it to Raiden. Excellent timing too, since apparently Raiden has been all figured out and completely explored.

 

[killa_solid]

Alright I was just messing around with this and honestly idk if f2 ex grab or ex superman are worth the risk most of the time. Let me explain. If you are reading that your opponent is going to do a wake up why not commit to your read and counter the wakeup. In the case of Sonya for example the only viable wakeup she has is cartwheel if you are reading she will do it just go for the njp. If your guess was wrong and she decided to do nothing you will get punished regardless of which option (Grab or superman) you chose. At least with the njp there is chance of a lesser punish by Sonya and you kept a bar which you might be able to use for breaker to save yourself.

Having said that there are certain characters where there isn't one simple wakeup that they can perform where this option select will come in handy if you read they will do a wake up but don't know which one. Example would be kabal( dash, saw, iagb..)

Also I gotta mention the teleport option select is pretty boss and should be the one used most often. You can also do it off of a d4, which is the better option imo. I say this bc f2 tele is -3 on block and -1 on hit while d4 tele is -3 on block as well but +3 on hit.
KH StarCharger

 

[KH StarCharger]

Alright I was just messing around with this and honestly idk if f2 ex grab or ex superman are worth the risk most of the time. Let me explain. If you are reading that your opponent is going to do a wake up why not commit to your read and counter the wakeup. In the case of Sonya for example the only viable wakeup she has is cartwheel if you are reading she will do it just go for the njp. If your guess was wrong and she decided to do nothing you will get punished regardless of which option (Grab or superman) you chose. At least with the njp there is chance of a lesser punish by Sonya and you kept a bar which you might be able to use for breaker to save yourself.

Having said that there are certain characters where there isn't one simple wakeup that they can perform where this option select will come in handy if you read they will do a wake up but don't know which one. Example would be kabal( dash, saw, iagb..)

Also I gotta mention the teleport option select is pretty boss and should be the one used most often. You can also do it off of a d4, which is the better option imo. I say this bc f2 tele is -3 on block and -1 on hit while d4 tele is -3 on block as well but +3 on hit.
KH StarCharger

The teleport as mentioned above is the safest option he has in this setup or wake up situation. In the scenario as mentioned above, Sonya players as well as other players have gotten wise to this and then when they see you trying to read and njp their attack, they just delay it and blow you up with it as they see you committing to your false read (I do it all the time). In general, this is something to force people to respect the oki game that raiden has with these options given the opporitunities that you get to use it. Against Kabal, any one of the three options will work depending on which one you as a player see fit to use. Hopefully I'll set up a chart of options that work best against Wake up specials that every character has had this tested on just to show a referrence guide to the Raiden community of what can and will work and what won't work sometime soon. But overall it's your choice as to what you want to use.

 

[ShanxterX]

this is really good stuff especially F2 into ex shoker against jax , kabal, kenshi , sonya, shangtsung(soulsteal) all baraka's wakeups liu kang. it stuffs all the armor, but you gotta make a good read. then when your opponent start respecting it and doesnt wake up u can can start missing it up and F2 into a grab or something...mind games my friends.

definitely i will be using this stuff

 

[killa_solid]

this is really good stuff especially F2 into ex shoker against jax , kabal, kenshi , sonya, shangtsung(soulsteal) all baraka's wakeups liu kang. it stuffs all the armor, but you gotta make a good read. then when your opponent start respecting it and doesnt wake up u can can start missing it up and F2 into a grab or something...mind games my friends.

definitely i will be using this stuff

Man.... you and your grabs. It feels like you're going for the 8 grabs in one game trophy every time I play your Raiden ;_;

 

[4x4lo8o]

I think this has the potential to be really good in some match ups. I haven't used it against real opponents yet, but it seems like some characters have no wake up that stuff f2~teleport. Which means that f2~teleport basically gives a you a chance to whiff punish and/or waste on of their bars while being completely safe. Some moves, like Kabal's Saw, will still connect so it's not something you can use wrecklessly in all mu's, but this could still turn out to be immensely useful in a lot of cases.

This also might work really well in conjunction to ghetto resets. End your combo with a teleport and they have to figure out whether you're going to pull shit or cross them up or just stand there blocking a wake up. They have a split second to decide to try do a reverse input wakeup or chose a possibly disadvantageous wakeup that would stuff the option select. Do it right and there's a good chance they're just going to sit there block and give free pressure or an opportunity to throw

 

[ShanxterX]

Man.... you and your grabs. It feels like you're going for the 8 grabs in one game trophy every time I play your Raiden ;_;

am telling you, raidens need to grab more, mind games . when i grab more , my opponents become more hesitant and tend to let go off block more often in the middle of my strings thinking am gonna cancel it into another grab

 

[4x4lo8o]

am telling you, raidens need to grab more, mind games . when i grab more , my opponents become more hesitant and tend to let go off block more often in the middle of my strings thinking am gonna cancel it into another grab

Raiden's grab is really good. It leaves them full screen, which is pretty much where you want them, and his pressure strings aren't that great so if you think they're going to block you have no reason not to just grab all day long.

 

[Mr. Mileena]

My gut still tells me this character is really unexplored and can break top 10 easily when played right, we just haven't had a Raiden main in tournament

 

[4x4lo8o]

@KH StarCharger, you deserve more props than you're getting, man.
I know you can only expect so much from a tech thread in the Raiden forums, but B Wizz's Christmas tech video was just a couple of new combos that just barely edged out the old ones(I'm not blowing up B Wizz, the combos were good and I'm glad he posted them, I'm just using it as a point for comparison) and that got multiple pages of replies

Right in the middle of this big stupid argument about whether Raiden is fully explored or not you come out with new tech for the character. Not only is the new tech actually new(unless someone's been sitting on this, I've never heard about it here and I know B Wizz doesn't use it, and even if someone was you get the props for it) but it's also actually good. It's probably not game changing, but at the very least it's going to be good to have in certain match ups. Yet despite the excellent content and your brilliant timing in posting this, it only got a few responses, and there's still people in the other thread saying there's nothing new to find for Raiden.

I wish this thread were the one that got 5 pages of replies and thousands of views. This whole community would be on a higher level if we had more people like you exploring and finding new things rather than declaring that we've got it all figured out. Thank you, sir. You are an inspiration and I will be using your tech at SCR.

 

[KH StarCharger]

@KH StarCharger, you deserve more props than you're getting, man.
I know you can only expect so much from a tech thread in the Raiden forums, but B Wizz's Christmas tech video was just a couple of new combos that just barely edged out the old ones(I'm not blowing up B Wizz, the combos were good and I'm glad he posted them, I'm just using it as a point for comparison) and that got multiple pages of replies

Right in the middle of this big stupid argument about whether Raiden is fully explored or not you come out with new tech for the character. Not only is the new tech actually new(unless someone's been sitting on this, I've never heard about it here and I know B Wizz doesn't use it, and even if someone was you get the props for it) but it's also actually good. It's probably not game changing, but at the very least it's going to be good to have in certain match ups. Yet despite the excellent content and your brilliant timing in posting this, it only got a few responses, and there's still people in the other thread saying there's nothing new to find for Raiden.

I wish this thread were the one that got 5 pages of replies and thousands of views. This whole community would be on a higher level if we had more people like you exploring and finding new things rather than declaring that we've got it all figured out. Thank you, sir. You are an inspiration and I will be using your tech at SCR.

haha Thanks bro! I didn't post it to fish for props like most people, I did it because this is some useful and fresh new tech that will help bring Raiden back to the forefront of tournament viability with a vengeance. This tech works on every top character you could think of and if you see the whole segment of the archive of what I was doing, I was doing a particular combo after each stuffed wake up attack so that I would end in a teleport to put them in another guessing situation on wake up with his F+2. Getting people to stop pressing buttons on wake up in this game is an awesome ability and it should be used. Be weary when using this against Reptile and Smoke though, Only certain things will work on them due to the speed of some of their wake ups.

 

[Chaosphere]

What happens when they do a wakeup attack before your f2 comes out? Does this rely on the opponent being caught completely off guard? Our does this work every time?

 

[KH StarCharger]

What happens when they do a wakeup attack before your f2 comes out? Does this rely on the opponent being caught completely off guard? Our does this work every time?

That means that you will have mistimed it and missed your chance to get any of these OS' in at all. It's all about timing and being in the right distance to have the F+2 empty buffer into any of the options. No it doesn't rely on them being off guard because you can set them up by ending many combos at midscreen with teleport to set them up for this tech on on any close knockdown in particular. This is a pretty foolproof discovery in general because it works on everybody with proper timing. Reptile and Smoke can be tricky however so those two will require practice.

 

[SirRaven]

This is a pretty foolproof discovery in general because it works on everybody with proper timing. Reptile and Smoke can be tricky however so those two will require practice.

Damn that Smoke, he remains my nemesis. For some reason, I just struggle against him immensely.

As for the tech, that's a really nice find. I always thought Raiden's anti-wakeup game was kind of weak but never bothered to really explore what could be done about it other than typical reads.

I'd like to test it out and see how ex-teleport fits within the more troublesome wake-ups. I'd think Kabal's buzzsaw will still hit either teleport but I'm curious about Reptile and Smoke.

 

[Dizzy]

This isn't an option select, f2 tele is a meaty that is safe against all your opponents options, and f2 armor is just a read your opponent is going to armor.

An example of a true OS is jump kick airthrow with smoke, scorpion, jax etc. You press the button and doesn't come out unless it hits.

That said, it covering all options is a good safe way to make your opponent respect you when you knock them down. Its minus on hit so the reward isn't that great if they wake up and try something beside wake up but I think the chance to make them waste meter is worth it in most cases.

Chaosphere not all knockdowns were created equal, you might not have time to dash up and get f2 off before they can wake up attack

 

[ShanxterX]

reptile's wake up is too fast i woundnt bother with him, smoke too. but this tech is especially very useful against the top tier : kabal, sonya, kenshi and many more .

 

[Chaosphere]

This isn't an option select, f2 tele is a meaty that is safe against all your opponents options, and f2 armor is just a read your opponent is going to armor.

An example of a true OS is jump kick airthrow with smoke, scorpion, jax etc. You press the button and doesn't come out unless it hits.

That said, it covering all options is a good safe way to make your opponent respect you when you knock them down. Its minus on hit so the reward isn't that great if they wake up and try something beside wake up but I think the chance to make them waste meter is worth it in most cases.

Chaosphere not all knockdowns were created equal, you might not have time to dash up and get f2 off before they can wake up attack

That's what I thought. I don't understand why you wouldn't just block the wakeup attack and get a full combo rather than teleport, possibly whiff punish if there's enough time which is good case scenario and the bad scenario being that they get free pressure with the worst case scenario being that you get hit by the wakeup attack.

 

[4x4lo8o]

That's what I thought. I don't understand why you wouldn't just block the wakeup attack and get a full combo rather than teleport, possibly whiff punish if there's enough time which is good case scenario and the bad scenario being that they get free pressure with the worst case scenario being that you get hit by the wakeup attack.

There are wake up attacks that are safe on block but can be whiff punished, and a lot of the ones that can be punished on block can be punished just as well on whiff with this.
This is more likely to bait out a wake up attack. If you're just sitting there blocking, or looking like you might block, they're less likely to do a wake up then if you're walking up to them and throwing out an attack.

And even if they just stand up and block, you're not even giving them free pressure. You're only slightly negative, and you're playing Raiden. You can teleport again before they can touch you. Of course that teleport is unsafe, but if they're sitting there waiting to punish the second teleport then they aren't getting free pressure.


The biggest problem that I actually see with using this tech is that Raiden's not usually next to the opponent on knockdown. Combos pretty much all end in superman(with the opponent fullscreen away) and in general I'm trying to create space, not get right next to them.

 

[Konqrr]

MK Option Selects are only useful when your opponent actually does something or you hit them... if they just get up and block, then you are hosed.

Good stuff anyways man.

 

[4x4lo8o]

The other thing I've noticed about this is that you can vary your timing a lot and still be safe.

When doing f2~teleport you can do it really early so that it hits the invisible/invincible hitbox above them before they're actually up doing their wake up or you can time it so late that you actually hit them after the invincible frames of the wake up are over and still teleport out before they hit. It might be different against a real opponent, but in practice mode I was getting the f2 to connect with the armor on Sonya's Kartwheel(so it did damage but didn't stuff the attack) and still teleporting out before I got hit. Even if you can't do that against a person because the training dummy has different invincibility frames I think there still might be some application for the different timings.



Also, f2 is 0 on block. So are f23, f24, and f23~vb. So if your opponent starts to get the hang of this and starts respecting it too much you can start mixing up what you do after f2. If you know they're going to block you don't have to do f2~teleport.

MK Option Selects are only useful when your opponent actually does something or you hit them... if they just get up and block, then you are hosed.

Good stuff anyways man.

Raiden's f2~teleport is safe on block. So you aren't exactly hosed.