shoshinsha
Noob
It's been briefly mentioned by a couple of people already, but I want to elaborate on it for emphasis: I think Rain's b+2 starter is going to be a HUGE part of his game. I'll list the reasons:
1. It's easily hit-confirmable.
2. It can be made safe on block in a number of ways (see below).
3. It has deceptive range.
4. You have a number of options out of it, all of which are excellent:
4a. You can follow it with 3 for a low hit that does 9% damage. That means if they block the first hit and eat the second, they've just taken 10% damage and are in place for a mixup. They cannot ignore this, because 3 or 4 of these will drain a huge chunk of life and they come out very fast, so they have to be thinking about blocking low sometimes.
4b. You can follow with 1+2 for an overhead, which will hit if they're worried about the option in 3a. From here, you can easily link into a combo that does 35-40% without meter.
4c. You can follow up with his superkick which is safe on block, or which can be charge-canceled out of for a throw attempt, special (teleport, water jet, geyser kick, etc. for different situations), or to reset the high/low trap.
4d. You can follow up with his ex superkick which has super armor, baiting a punish that will lead into anywhere from 30-35% damage.
I realize that his combos starting with 4, 3 do a little more damage (not that much, honestly), but the mixup potential on this move is insane--maybe unparalleled in the game.
1. It's easily hit-confirmable.
2. It can be made safe on block in a number of ways (see below).
3. It has deceptive range.
4. You have a number of options out of it, all of which are excellent:
4a. You can follow it with 3 for a low hit that does 9% damage. That means if they block the first hit and eat the second, they've just taken 10% damage and are in place for a mixup. They cannot ignore this, because 3 or 4 of these will drain a huge chunk of life and they come out very fast, so they have to be thinking about blocking low sometimes.
4b. You can follow with 1+2 for an overhead, which will hit if they're worried about the option in 3a. From here, you can easily link into a combo that does 35-40% without meter.
4c. You can follow up with his superkick which is safe on block, or which can be charge-canceled out of for a throw attempt, special (teleport, water jet, geyser kick, etc. for different situations), or to reset the high/low trap.
4d. You can follow up with his ex superkick which has super armor, baiting a punish that will lead into anywhere from 30-35% damage.
I realize that his combos starting with 4, 3 do a little more damage (not that much, honestly), but the mixup potential on this move is insane--maybe unparalleled in the game.