Raiden Match-ups thread

[Raidenwins]

This thread is for discussing how Raiden matches up with other characters. Hopefully we'll be able to cover all of them one day.

I'll start.

Raiden vs. Sub-Zero: SZ's main tools are his ice clones and the ice balls. He can use them to either zone the opponent out or pressure them. However Raiden has the fastest teleport in the game. A good Raiden player can teleport behind SZ on reaction when he notices the ice clone or ice ball animations and from there on punish SZ. Furthermore Raiden's EX electric fly (fb3) goes through Ice Clones. With that said, Raiden forces Sub-Zero into a mostly 50/50 guessing games and large neutralizes his strongest tools.

I am having a lot of trouble with Kung Lao. Any tips on fighting him with Raiden?

 

[JFord78]

I am having a lot of trouble with Kung Lao. Any tips on fighting him with Raiden?

Raiden doesn't have any bad matchups. The only competitive match up he has is Kung Lao. Patience and baiting is the key in that matchup. Punish his non ex teleports with electric grab/late teleport/jumb back 3 to neutralize his mixup. Save ur meter for combo breakers. Only use ex electric shots. The regular one can be punished easily. Mix up using teleport/superman/throw/Another block string during ur blockstrings. Back 3-1-2 should be ur combo starter of choice to punish blocked/baited spins.

 

[PringerX]

I'm having trouble against Ermac. His Force Lift has so little startup that I'm having trouble evening punishing him after I block him. I was just having trouble getting any priority at all with my moves. It basically comes down to me blocking and teleporting a lot, hoping I can get in a quick sweep or uppercut. FK,FK,BK was too slow and would just get picked off by Force Lift, even if it looked like I had started first and was nearly about to hit him in the face. It probably didn't help that online is so laggy.

Anyway, I'm kind of rambling, enough of how I failed. What do you guys like to do against Ermac?

 

[Raidenwins]

I'm having trouble against Ermac. His Force Lift has so little startup that I'm having trouble evening punishing him after I block him. I was just having trouble getting any priority at all with my moves. It basically comes down to me blocking and teleporting a lot, hoping I can get in a quick sweep or uppercut. FK,FK,BK was too slow and would just get picked off by Force Lift, even if it looked like I had started first and was nearly about to hit him in the face. It probably didn't help that online is so laggy.

Anyway, I'm kind of rambling, enough of how I failed. What do you guys like to do against Ermac?

Electric Fly can punish Force Lift, and pretty much anything else Ermac has. The name of the game when playing Ermac is anticipation. After you gain some experience, you will develop a feel for when he'll attempt any of his telekinetic moves. If you see him floating in the air preparing for a ground stomp, you can punish with air Electric Fly. Ermac is a zoning character, he'll try to stay away, throw projectiles at you and catch you off-guard with a Force Lift for a high-damage combo. Use Raiden's teleport liberally, just don't become too predictable. The teleport is hard to punish but it is punishable. Many Ermac players will attempt to Force Lift you out of teleport. To evade this, teleport and then just stay in block for 1-2 seconds.

They'll do the same thing when you knock them down, i.e. a Wake-Up Force Lift. Again, just walk up to them as if to threaten an attack and then hold block.

 

[tehm]

Coming at it from another angle, as a Kano player I consider the raiden match up 6-4 for Kano.

Knife is the best projectile in the game in terms of damage/speed/recovery which forces Raiden to respond to knife with teleport or meter usage instead of spark. One of the properties of kano, however, is that if you teleport buffered knife it comes out as Up Ball which beats Raiden's teleport (can't even block) and serves as a near hard counter to it.

Combine that with Kano having an excellent jump game (air ball and aerial throw) which is Raiden's weakness and as time goes on it seems likely that the match-up may even grow closer to a 7-3 than it will a 5-5.

Just my $0.02 anyways.

 

[Raidenwins]

To continue our versus-Ermac discussion, I fought a very good Ermac player by the name of CableKabal on PSN yesterday. The guy was merciless with punishing anything whiffed with Force Lift into a 37% combo. There were three major situations where he caught me with the Force Lift: right after I teleported, on Wake-up when I attempted to pressure him after I had knocked him down (usually at a corner), and after a blocked Electric Fly. Once in a while he would also cancel into it from a blocked combo, but much less often than the other 3 situations.

So once I noticed that I started using the tactic of blocking at those three states and caught him off-guard many times, but then he adjusted as well and started dashing up and throwing me when I blocked.

So what's the moral of the story? Don't become predictable and allow him to control the pace of the match with his Force Lift into easy ~37% combo. Really, that's his best tool. Force Push is a good zoning tool, but he can't follow it up with anything. It's just a keep away and combo ender tool. His Teleport Punch is very punishable by a Shocker into a combo of your choise. His projectile is your run of the mill...well, projectile. Nothing special here. His strings lack Mids and Lows, so you can duck many of them and punish with Uppercut. So really, the scariest thing about Ermac is Force Lift. You just have to read him and then punish, or stay out of its range.

 

[R2FI]

isn't a blocked force push or force lift punishable by electric fly from almost half screen distance?

 

[Raidenwins]

Yes, it is, but how do you know when he is going to do a Force Lift?! That's the million dollar question. The Force Lift has a quick start-up and from what I can tell, not too many recovery frames.

I guess that's one match-up where Raiden has to be extra careful with the Teleport, depending on the opponent's skill level of course. I'd say start-off the match normally, with lots of teleports and if you get caught in a Force Lift once or twice then the next time you teleport stay in block. There is no one right strategy for defeating Ermac. For example, I've faced several Ermac players and only one gave me trouble. The other ones were not able to punish teleport at all and were not able to pull off Force Lift on wake-up so consistently. So, you have to assess your opponent and adjust your game accordingly.

 

[JFord78]

Yes, it is, but how do you know when he is going to do a Force Lift?! That's the million dollar question. The Force Lift has a quick start-up and from what I can tell, not too many recovery frames.

I don't know if you are playing online or in person. If you are playing online you probably won't be able to use wave dashes consistently to get inside.
The lag also won't let you punish the force lift's you do block. If you are fighting in person you should be able to react and read during the course of the match when he will use projectile grabs. I think the match up is in Raiden's favor easily. Mainly for 5 reasons. The size of the levels. You zone better than him from further out. You don't need meter to do equivalent damage. Your offense is much safer when spaced right. You have coward copter aka air superman.

 

[Raidenwins]

I play mostly online, and even then the Force Lift is punishable, but barely. You have to be very fast with the Electric Fly, I don't know if you can punish with a dash into a combo online, probably not but of course it depends on your opponent's skill level.

I agree, the match-up is definitely in Raiden's favor. Ermac is a one-trick pony. If you take away his Force Lift by anticipating and punishing properly he is pretty much at Raiden's mercy, for all the reasons already elaborated on above.

 

[Raidenwins]

Let's switch gears a bit. Any tips on fighting Liu Kang with Raiden? I played a very good Liu Kang player yesterday by the name of DJTMIT. I couldn't win a single match against the guy. He kept doing that b3, 1, 2 combo over, and over, and over, and over again. One time he did it 5 times in a row (at a corner), other times 4 or 3, but man, that combo drove me crazy. I think the second hit is a low so you gotta block it crouching, and if you do that he does a different combo that ends on an Overhead Mid. It seems Liu Kang is all about getting in your face and doing constant 50/50 mix-ups.

 

[SubZeroIce]

Kano is a horrible match-up for Raiden. I hate playing Kano's as Raiden because when u get close, they will just do the upball, and if u block, which i have done, they do it twice in a row. Kano players are insanely annoying against Raiden's.

I actually have no problem with Kung lao's. They are usually really predictable. A lot of them are really jumpy so punish that with a fast Jump Kick into electric fly. All of his attacks are now really easy to punish, so I love the KL vs Raiden match up.

 

[c0nfizzle]

raidens cheesy i hope everyone is kano to beat his ass

 

[Lyuben]

Kano is the latest cheese. He just happens to be cheesier than Raiden. Both are pretty cheesy but Kano wins in a cheese war with Raiden.

 

[goodone]

how do you deal with sub-zero's who just spam clones? I have very little experience with mk9 so far but I usually can tell what it is I have to do to deal with something like that but constant clones make it impossible to play aggressively and pretty rough to get in with electric fly and sometimes teleport. Any strats or tips to someone fairly new and very unexperienced would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Somberness]

how do you deal with sub-zero's who just spam clones? I have very little experience with mk9 so far but I usually can tell what it is I have to do to deal with something like that but constant clones make it impossible to play aggressively and pretty rough to get in with electric fly and sometimes teleport. Any strats or tips to someone fairly new and very unexperienced would be greatly appreciated!

No reason for you to play aggressive, that is what Sub-Zero wants. However, there is always a window of opportunity when the clone disappears. Use teleport and combo him if he does clone --> ice ball. Else, just sit back and wait until he tries to go in for an attack.

 

[goodone]

Just went like 1-9 with a jonny cage online. I have no clue what I am supposed to do. The lag made it extremely difficult to deal with his special kicks and that seemed to punish everything I did into a long long annoying and frustrating chain. I tried playing aggressive and waiting for him to make the mistakes. I constantly switched up my approach with teles but it didnt matter. he got to where he often could just punish them with fast kick special. I know I'm not great and this guy was more outplaying me but it felt like such an uphill battle. is there anything that works well? The online slight lag makes it very difficult to get shit started too. so frustrating

 

[Voyd]

how do you deal with sub-zero's who just spam clones? I have very little experience with mk9 so far but I usually can tell what it is I have to do to deal with something like that but constant clones make it impossible to play aggressively and pretty rough to get in with electric fly and sometimes teleport. Any strats or tips to someone fairly new and very unexperienced would be greatly appreciated!

from my experience teleport works rly well. just make sure you mixup the follow-up attack after the teleport (superman, grab, b4, or some combo). also watchout for slides because i notice a lot of sub-z players slide after making a clone.

 

[goodone]

from my experience teleport works rly well. just make sure you mixup the follow-up attack after the teleport (superman, grab, b4, or some combo). also watchout for slides because i notice a lot of sub-z players slide after making a clone.

yea after playing a lot of games with different sub-zeros im finding the best way to get big damage off is from punishing the slide. just read and punish the wake up slides and mix up with teles, especially if they get impatient and start throwing iceballs. thanks for the help dudes

 

[Loot]

Clones cannot be punished on reaction, you have to read it and basically teleport before it comes out. Otherwise he's just gonna take some chip/sweep/throw. Subby is a patient matchup, don't be afraid to throw a fireball or two.

As for Liu, fuzzy guarding. Once you corner him it's game over as he has literally no wakeup game other than parry.

 

[Albo]

This thread is for discussing how Raiden matches up with other characters. Hopefully we'll be able to cover all of them one day.

I'll start.

Raiden vs. Sub-Zero: SZ's main tools are his ice clones and the ice balls. He can use them to either zone the opponent out or pressure them. However Raiden has the fastest teleport in the game. A good Raiden player can teleport behind SZ on reaction when he notices the ice clone or ice ball animations and from there on punish SZ. Furthermore Raiden's EX electric fly (fb3) goes through Ice Clones. With that said, Raiden forces Sub-Zero into a mostly 50/50 guessing games and large neutralizes his strongest tools.

I am having a lot of trouble with Kung Lao. Any tips on fighting him with Raiden?

patience and disipline is key against kung imo. stay away from him and if he decides to teleport you really should very easily read it and punish with and uppercut. crouching before he teleports makes for an easier punish with shocker or 334. if he decides to throw hats, teleport and f2,b4 him and link it with a superman straight after that. if he is throwing mid hats ex superman could be a possibility but you have to time it just as he starts his animation as if he could be anticipating an ex teleport and block straight after he throws a hat. most kungs (even advanced ones) can't really do react fast enough if you input the f2,b4 fast enough and some are still in recovery frames from throwing the hat. if you can't punish their teles with an uppercut then try ex shocker as a least resort or if your feeling lucky 334 sometimes kicks them out of the air. just remember they always be waiting for you to teleport so they can punish you with spin if they have good reactions so try and read their movements and predict their pattern. if you are puishing their tele effectively then they will try and dash block towards you and when they are close they will most likley jump punch which you can easily punish with superman, ex shocker or uppercut. thats the key with playing raiden against kung, staying away from him as he wants to stay as close as possible to you and maintain pressure. you need to zone him out by keeping distance, putting yourself at an advantage and him at an disadvantage and out of his comfort zone by dictating the pace of the fight. spins on wakeup are also common in lao players. when those are blocked, proceed with a full combo of your choice. another thing is to not make your teleports to predictable to him to as his spin and fast jabs could easily punish. if he is punishing your tele with fast jabs then you can low poke with d3 wich puts them in a little stagger state which leaves them open with a f2,4 after if you input it very quickly. what i have also learnt form experience is that most advanced loa players like to jump backwards in anticipation of the teleport in order to land a crossover jump while you are in recovery frames from the teleport. what works best from me is sometimes just superman as it gets me away form them as fast as possible and back where i want to be, across the screen from them where i can continue play the guessing game with them. nuetral jp, and back jump kick also work to counter aggressive crossover jump punches which you'll want to avoid as much as possible as they lead to a full combo for lao. as a raiden player you'll also be looking to take him to the corner if possible where they will most likely use spin or teleport on wakeup which you can block the spin and punish the latter.

 

[Raidenwins]

Let's switch characters. What about Raiden vs. Mileena? I am having a lot of trouble against good Mileena players.

Her main tools are the Tele-kick and the Roll and her main mix-up is Low Kick->Roll->Full combo alternated with Overhead launcher->Roll->Full combo. She gets a full combo after a Roll and the above mentioned mix-up after a successful Tele-kick. Blocked Roll is very unsafe, but the good thing about it is that it comes out fast and it hits Low so that's something to always watch out for in close proximity, especially when they are knocked down in the corner.

Blocked Tele-kick by itself is also punishable and relatively easy to bait. However, its recovery frames can be canceled to a degree with an Instant Sai Blast. Is it still punishable in that case?

What gives me the most headaches is EX-Tele-kick cancelled into an instant Sai Blast on block. That doesn't seem to be punishable at all, although I believe there is a way to Uppercut her out of it, but you definitely do not get full combo. Not sure if Electric Fly can punish it?

The more advanced Mileena players will try to zone you with instant Air Sai Blasts, but you can Teleport behind them or do an EX-Electric Fly (this is hard though, those iAir Sai Blasts come out fast). I have been told by a high-level Mileena player that Raiden is her worst match up, but I am still having trouble against her. Any general advice?

 

[Jelan]

I don't have much experience with Raiden against Mileena, but I believe general anti-zoning works on her and upclose don't try strings like b312 of 334. 1212, f24 and other faster string may do the trick since Mileena' main launchers or pretty slow (except for 42 what I don't have ever seen online). And do not spam superman randomly, she's going to punish the fuck out of you. And her Roll doesn't hit low actually.

Hope I've helped.