Raiden Match Footage

[Mandolore1123]

Nice first to 10.
My thoughts- Dalph did great fighting at Raiden's natural midscreen footsie range. Lots of his early losses were not fighting in that space and trying to go toe to toe with Liu Kang in jab range. Dalph adapts and plays distance footsies and gets some wins (does well around the 20ish minute mark if I remember correctly), and then Happy starts using his projectile game as an adaptation.
Dalph needs to work on hit and block confirming B12. He lost some rounds doing the wrong ender. Also a few input errors (especially early in the set) that I get all the time as someone coming from Thunderwave, so I can relate. For a long set, he's relying on B12 far too much. It just becomes a predictable spacing and attack pattern that Happy picked up on. I really feel Dalph did the best when he started mixing it up, throwing in F2, the occasional F3, etc.

So, my overall analysis (as someone who is not nearly as good as these players, so don't take it wrong :-p )
Dalph needs to be more mindful of his range, work with his other strings to better contest that range, and work on properly hit confirming B12. That said, I think it was a strong set by both players and I'm glad it was posted.

Unfortunately, as Raijin you need to be prepared to spend a lot of time and life to walk Liu Kang to the corner. You can definitely suffocate him there but you have to work very hard for it in Raijin. Raiden can literally win games by destroying people in the corner.

 

[Enexemander]

Unfortunately, as Raijin you need to be prepared to spend a lot of time and life to walk Liu Kang to the corner. You can definitely suffocate him there but you have to work very hard for it in Raijin. Raiden can literally win games by destroying people in the corner.

Well, that was something else I noticed. He used B31 maybe twice in the full 40 minute set. I think he used B2 once and it was probably an input error. He wasn't using that part of Raiden's gameplan at all. That said, the reason I didn't mention it is that I don't really blame him. B2 on block is complete death, so it could have simply been respect for a player of HappyPow's caliber.

 

[Mandolore1123]

Well, that was something else I noticed. He used B31 maybe twice in the full 40 minute set. I think he used B2 once and it was probably an input error. He wasn't using that part of Raiden's gameplan at all. That said, the reason I didn't mention it is that I don't really blame him. B2 on block is complete death, so it could have simply been respect for a player of HappyPow's caliber.

If they delay wake up, roll, or U3 they beat B2. When he has buff on doing B12~DF2 doesn’t have a gap and on block you are automatically pushed into footsie range where you shine. So unless you’re very confident they aren’t going to do anything on wake up throwing out a raw B2 is risky.

 

[Enexemander]

Yep. But if you never use the different tools, your opponent has little they need to adapt to. B31 has great range, launches, does decent damage even without charge and sets up a safe charge after the combo. It's a good string that hits low and he wasn't using it. Raiden also has the best hop kick in the game for an overhead.
Please realize I'm not saying Dalph was playing wrong. Just that his style was very simple and linear and I think Happy adapted to it quickly.
I'm a big fan of varying the options to perplex the opponent. At the end of the day, it's about fighting your opponent's mind. Doing some calculated YOLO can assault that fortress (again, my opinion and style )

 

[Mandolore1123]

Yep. But if you never use the different tools, your opponent has little they need to adapt to. B31 has great range, launches, does decent damage even without charge and sets up a safe charge after the combo. It's a good string that hits low and he wasn't using it. Raiden also has the best hop kick in the game for an overhead.
Please realize I'm not saying Dalph was playing wrong. Just that his style was very simple and linear and I think Happy adapted to it quickly.
I'm a big fan of varying the options to perplex the opponent. At the end of the day, it's about fighting your opponent's mind. Doing some calculated YOLO can assault that fortress (again, my opinion and style )

I agree completely mate. B12~df2 is just the safest option. Since Raiden is not top tier we need to use all his tools and actually work hard to win

 

[MKF30]

Was just thinking earlier, how cool would it be if his lightning strike/DF2 launched opponents or stunned them for a free hit like sub's freeze. That would make him so much better.

 

[Mandolore1123]

Was just thinking earlier, how cool would it be if his lightning strike/DF2 launched opponents or stunned them for a free hit like sub's freeze. That would make him so much better.

That would not solve his problems at all. He just needs slightly better frames for his projectiles and MAYBE slightly better frames on block for certain moves. Otherwise he’s completely fine

 

[MKF30]

That would not solve his problems at all. He just needs slightly better frames for his projectiles and MAYBE slightly better frames on block for certain moves. Otherwise he’s completely fine

Of course it wouldn't solve his other issues, but he would be better for sure than the way the the move is now and let's be honest. Any useful buff at this point in tw especially would make him better.

 

[BuffRaidenPlz]

I honestly think even if you took Raijin and added his teleport to it he still wouldn't be top tier lol, he's that bad. Last few times I checked on Xbox ranked there was only one Raiden player in the entire top 100, ranked about 60 and I've watched that player a lot, he's talented and would be top 10 with a decent character. We can argue about the technical aspect all day but the raw data speaks volumes.

He has lots of half decent options it's just most characters have better options. He's meant to be a zoner but his projectiles aren't great. If you get in close his mixups are poor. b13 can be blocked on reaction even over the internet. I think if they had just buffed his TW variation it would have been enough but instead they chose to bring his weaker Raijin variation up to par with TW.

Most of my game revolves around pushing/throwing them into the corner but if they have defensive bar it's nothing to write home about.

A random thing I dislike about him is a lot of his best moves lose in "priority" against other good moves of your opponent. If I do F4 or B12 at the same time as my opponent doing one of their key combo starters Raiden often ends up worse off from the exchange.

He needs some serious meaty buffs. Like his quick charge lasting the whole round once fired up or giving him the best projectile frames.

 

[Black Chapters]

Quick Charge should at least continue to stay active if hes still taking hits. And it automatically dying out if either side gets a KB is pure stupidity.

Quick Charge should also be able to power his other 4 moves, 3 of them are ass. Lightning Rod is embarrassing, the regular version only has use if the opponent is up close, Lightning Storm is a pitiful version of adding air projectiles and Jo Push is just not worth it for 2 slots.

I'm not understanding why Raijin adds zoning tools and then takes one away for a klose range move when you don't want to be up klose with him. This is why I hate variants, just make Raiden a pure zoner with one moveset and his bad frames up klose isn't an issue. Instead he has slow ass attacks that get beaten out easily. So he can't zone or fight klose range well at all. His Lightning Bolt shouldn't be worse than Sonya's Sonic Ring.

 

[UnshavenRaven]

Raijin has plenty of tools, you just have to know how to use them properly. I've said it once and I'll say it again, as a Raijin main, I've beaten 99 percent of all Thunder Wave opponents I've faced, in both Kombat League and Kasual Versus (both before and after the patch.)

 

[BuffRaidenPlz]

Raijin has plenty of tools, you just have to know how to use them properly. I've said it once and I'll say it again, as a Raijin main, I've beaten 99 percent of all Thunder Wave opponents I've faced, in both Kombat League and Kasual Versus (both before and after the patch.)

I think the majority consensus is Raijin is the stronger variant of the two.

I've tried Raijin but prefer Thunder Wave. Are you on PS4 or Xbox? I don't mind testing my TW against your Raijin ;-)

 

[UnshavenRaven]

I think the majority consensus is Raijin is the stronger variant of the two.

I've tried Raijin but prefer Thunder Wave. Are you on PS4 or Xbox? I don't mind testing my TW against your Raijin ;-)

Sorry for the late response, haven't been on the internet much lately haha, but yeah I'm on PS4, username is "UnshavenOne". Haven't played much these past 10 days or so, too much overtime from work lol. Hopefully this week.

 

[Mandolore1123]

 

[Mandolore1123]

I find Dalphanate is a bit over-reliant on B12. He could have ended rounds with 121KB several times but didn’t. He did a great job antiairing though.

 

[Beef Supreme]

Quick Charge should at least continue to stay active if hes still taking hits. And it automatically dying out if either side gets a KB is pure stupidity.

Quick Charge should also be able to power his other 4 moves, 3 of them are ass. Lightning Rod is embarrassing, the regular version only has use if the opponent is up close, Lightning Storm is a pitiful version of adding air projectiles and Jo Push is just not worth it for 2 slots.

I'm not understanding why Raijin adds zoning tools and then takes one away for a klose range move when you don't want to be up klose with him. This is why I hate variants, just make Raiden a pure zoner with one moveset and his bad frames up klose isn't an issue. Instead he has slow ass attacks that get beaten out easily. So he can't zone or fight klose range well at all. His Lightning Bolt shouldn't be worse than Sonya's Sonic Ring.

Because Raijin isn't a zoning variation.

 

[Marlow]

Nice. Anti airs seemed great. Big problem seemed to be getting knocked down and having to deal with pressure on wakeup, especially when he didn't have defensive bar. I liked his use of teleport, and even though he relied on B12 pretty heavy he did his best to try and make it safe with some teleport cancels or electric fly cancels. Seems like a decent blueprint for how TW should be played. I would have liked to see a few more F3's or F32, just to give the opponent some variety in the strings they're seeing.

 

[Mandolore1123]

Nice. Anti airs seemed great. Big problem seemed to be getting knocked down and having to deal with pressure on wakeup, especially when he didn't have defensive bar. I liked his use of teleport, and even though he relied on B12 pretty heavy he did his best to try and make it safe with some teleport cancels or electric fly cancels. Seems like a decent blueprint for how TW should be played. I would have liked to see a few more F3's or F32, just to give the opponent some variety in the strings they're seeing.

He ends all corner combos in F32 for hit advantage, though it doesn’t really work out and you sacrifice quite a bit of damage. Though I remember posting something about ending in F32 and you can go through WU U2 and U3 as well because you’re +47 or something. Useful to bait stuff out but not sure if it’s worth it

 

[Marlow]

Not sure if this got posted yet somewhere else or not. Raiden play starts at around the 26:40 mark I believe.

 

[Mandolore1123]

Nice Raiden Play here against Frost

 

[Mandolore1123]

Stumbled onto this guy playing Truth and Light, making the most of rod in pressure situations.

 

[Marlow]

Nice. That opening sequence was pretty good. B12 into amped rod, into jump kick, then D4 right into B12 again. I wonder how hard it is to be able to combo the D4-Bubble hit into a combo. Too bad he missed the lightning strike input, he could have probably had a chance to follow up with another B12 or F4.

Looks like he had some chances in the first game for some nice conversions with the opponent not really understanding how the bubble worked, but he wasn't able to convert. The Frost player seemed to do a much better job dealing with the rod pressure in the second game. But the Raiden player was able to use the rod to avoid getting full combo punished, so that was a nice use.

 

[Mandolore1123]

Echo playing solidly. One of the few people who stuck with the character and continues trying to make him work.

 

[Mandolore1123]

Echo playing solidly. One of the few people who stuck with the character and continues trying to make him work.

I will say he loves pressing buttons and it has cost him games and his high risk play style loses out to the superior mix-ups of Liu

 

[MKF30]

haha LOL@ the part when he said "Did anyone play Raiden at ETC, did anyone even highlight Raiden on the select screen" If you have to ask, you know your answer lmao. Nice matches he plays very teleport heavy. Only thing I disagree with the commenter is the part where he complains about "I feel bad for Raiden players, but then I see him vs Jade, KK and Terminator and I don't" lol Dude that's 3 characters out of the entire roster he struggles less with with lol, that dude on drugs? lmao. Terminator is still too new and struggles against a lot of people so shouldn't even count him. But nice matches anyway. I'll post some soon from my Raiden in KL facing Scorpion's and annoying KL's.