So what's next for Raam?

I think he’s talking about longer juggles. For example if you do c.HP, jab, then emergence then yes the emergence becomes breakable despite being a projectile which are normally unbreakable.

Speaking of Raam juggles, theres a buff I wouldn’t mind, either making shadow emergency a cashout or letting LK flip out work when the opponent is being juggled. Right now his juggles are pointless outside of simply applying kryll since you can’t turn them into hard knockdowns and you can’t cash them out and if you hit them with LK it doesn’t cause the flip out. Granted juggles aren’t really what Raam is supposed to be doing anyway but it’d still be fun to experiment with.

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I’d rather do without that. I like the very singular focus of raam’s design. He doesn’t zone, he doesn’t juggle, he’s not about the high/low, and he doesn’t even really do that well in combos outside of instinct.

The big man just wants to grab you.

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Yeah that’s what I’m talking about. I frequently anti-air into manual special cancelled into MK Emergence which nets me 15~20% damage, Kryll debuff and Stomp set-up since anti-air Emergence lets you follow-up. But the Emergence part is breakable and suuuuuper readable, and if I use Shadow Emergence it can’t be followed up with stomps and it’s not like it’s even a damage cashout so there’s not much point.

I’m all for making him focused on grabbing you, but if they don’t even want to make that part of his kit in line with the rest of the cast where his command grabs are throw invulnerable then they shouldn’t be killing the rest of his tools as hard as they are now. You can’t even kill with regular emergence since it doesn’t deal 1%

That makes sense though, as it follows the 3-hit rule of an otherwise non-breakable chain of attacks. It’s what allows that set of moves from not becoming too OP.[quote=“SithLordEDP, post:203, topic:15681”]
either making shadow emergency a cashout
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No. He already gets kryll poison on them, which is unavoidable, full damage until it naturally runs out or until Raam gets hit (whichever comes 1st). Cashing out damage on top of that would be ludicrously broken and OP.[quote=“SithLordEDP, post:203, topic:15681”]
Right now his juggles are pointless outside of simply applying kryll since you can’t turn them into hard knockdowns and you can’t cash them out
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They are not pointless - they give him setups and free damage. Furthermore, kryll poison can be cashed out with a follow-up combo ender (in another, separate combo - just to clarify) as well as using said ender for a hard knockdown.

ARGH!

I had a nice write-up of a handful of HKD setup transcriptions, and saved an accidental ctrl+V over it. Goddammit.

3P is dash cancellable on hit or block, as well as during the windup animation. If you’re not getting the cancel, you’re inputting the dash too late (the dash cancel is a commitment, you can’t confirm>dash).

If the in-game frame data can be trusted on this, you should be +8 after blocked FA, and +3 if you DC it.

+3 would be super strong. I did frame step on kryll FADC and it was -2 I believe. I think the non-DC’d attack is +8 on block, though.

It is indeed +8 on block.

I kinda wish that since its so vulnerable to anything special cancellable that it had the 3 level system sf4 had instead of the 2 level system it currently has.

Yeah, I totally didn’t frame step it. I was just going off of the in-game data (+8/20f recovery) and the dash-frames thread (25f fwd dash).

It is super slow to start up though, and you have to spend a bar to cancel into it (to force block without a KD), so +3 didn’t seem too outlandish… I’ll trust your frame step to my elementary arithmetic with potentially flawed information though.

Seems like your math should be right, maybe I messed up my frame step. Either way I’m curious where the discrepancy is.

A while back they did nerf the active frames from something crazy down to 2. Could be the frames are still extant, but part of the recovery? If this isn’t reflected in the frame data, this could be the discrepancy.

EDIT: Lab says 4 active frames (we know this to be incorrect). Used the block>jump test, RAAM passed (FADC is at least +1). I would love for anyone to double check when they’ve got the time. :smiley:

It can’t be negative, If you dash cancel it on block into shadow command grab it’ll whiff because they’re still in blockstun.

Guess I messed up my recording, or am otherwise misremembering it somehow. Someone with frame step tools should check it out.

I even say he is -2 in my guide, so I must have felt pretty confident about it at one point. Dunno.

So stomps are out the window now. I guess the reversal thing was a bug afterall. Tried multiple times to get keits to affirm/deny what was up with it but i guess now we know.but it means the throw loops are likely to be a whole lot less effective now.

Pd change means less damage on lockouts. Definitely nice that raam can actually use the combo system and feel at least a mediumlless bad now. Hopefully out of combo instincts work to opening people up more often from not being able to tell left/right since more instincts get used.

Variable throw distance are on acharacter by character basis really messes with labbing since left/right mixups are really weird

One thing is it says “reversal special moves,” maybe it still means no instincts/backdashes? I’ll try it out tommorow but dunno if it saves stomps.

Hopefully the pd change feels pretty good, because i dunno what raam got out of it other than a kinda forced instinct use change

So uh… what now

I think it helps characters that are easily broken (like Raam), because then you can throw heavies and care a little less about being broken, then eventually 1-chance for a bunch of damage.

Is RAAM a dead character? Feels like nobody wants to play him anymore, at least not on a professional level. I could be wrong, but it doesn’t feel like the PD changes will change that either, doesn’t really matter much when you’re playing a character that really struggles to open people up.

Oh, I do. I’m adding him to my arsenal cause he defines intimidation

In my opinion, OTG stomps/flipouts never should have been seen as a primary tool to begin with, but they were. Flipouts are best when they’re a surprise, but they’re rarely used as a surprise from RAAM players. In addition to cross-up setups, RAAM has really high meaty setup potential using s.MK and s.HK.

s.MK is active for 7 (!!) frames. That means you have a 4 frame window to catch both jump and backdash with it. It’s also +9 on hit, so it links into s.HP. If you place it on frame 2 of your opponent’s wakeup and they backdash, you’ll hit them and be +15.

If you effectively use these buttons as meaties, especially with f+MK as the setup tool, then it makes OTG stomps and flipouts a lot more effective as a secondary tool.

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This is good advice. Be sure to mix it up with fake Mk’s into grabs, its pretty much impossible to react to.

The weakness with the MK>HP confirm however is that it makes Decimation breakable, and its a 50/50 guess break since you can’t connect with the HP version. To further complicate things, all versions of Decimation has VERY distinct audio cues (but most of the time people don’t really pay attention to those!).

Blocked MK also gives you tons of options and pretty much none of them can be reacted to. Technically MK>HP can be interrupted with jabs, but if you do MK>MP it will force your opponent to think twice about it. MK>Command grab is also incredibly strong and is necessary to discourage shadow counters. Standing MK is just amazing in general, probably RAAM’s best normal next to Standing HP.

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Just as a note, virtually all the “pro” Aganos players also have a pocket Raam. It’s not uncommon to see the character pulled out as a secondary if the player’s Aganos isn’t getting it done, or for certain MU’s where they just feel more confident in Raam/X than Aganos/X.

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