Ok, so Raiden has the best approach in the game.
Answers:
Are they doing anything that doesnt hit you = teleport behind them and combo.
Catch them casting a projectile = ex electric fly goes through projectiles
Are they predicting your teleport = ex teleport double teleports
Is your opponent at his last sliver of health = Ex fireball goes in both directions, and you control the air.
These are pretty common sense strategies to land your next hit, basic fundamentals and reading your opponent should tell you when to block, when to overhead, and when to sweep, pretty street fighter method of mindgames. But as mentioned before, Raiden has answers to problems nobody else has, and most of them end with electric fly, which gives you awesome positioning near the corner.
The Corner:
Raiden can literally do 34% with 1 combo repeated 3 times. 3,3,4-3,3,4-3,3,4 and then the game resets your combo. 4 is an overhead, so if your opponent is dumb, he will fall for it. Infact you can practically combo any of the popup combos presented in the first thread, three times. Electric grab and Shocker are both good combo extensions, and Ive even seen the ex double fireball used in some combos.
The point I am trying to make is, that every combo Raiden has pushes your opponent dangerously close to the corner, if not in one shot. IF you suck at combos, the 3,3,4 will serve you well with 34%, best known Raiden combos barely reach 50% so unless your opponent can self heal (Can anyone?) You will basically be killing them with 3 combos meter or not, so save your meter for combo breakers since that will keep more combo dangerous opponents on the same damage level as you.
Sweep/overhead Mixup:
Raiden has two combos in the book that start the same way:
2,2, electric grab
and
2,2,back+4
The first combo actually leads to an easy 29% mid screen combo, which can be pretty dangerous, or you can make it easier for 24%, the thing is, using BnB’s that start out like this will lead to your opponent blocking them, even right after a teleport. If they stand to block, an easy sweep is 2,2,back+4 instead, which hits low for a sweep on the last hit.
Its pretty hard to guess what combo is coming right after a teleport, let alone block it, but if they do it standing, you can sweep. If you think they wont block low, you can start the combo with an overhead (forward+4) or 3,3,4 which ends in an overhead.
Again, if they are predicting your movements and interrupting your attacks with an attack of their own, you can ex teleport and hit them in the back, with whichever you like.
Throws
If you play any of the street fighter series, you can skip this bit.
I forgot to put this here, so to put it simply, if your opponent is blocking your combo, you can stop it and start something else, be it a sweep, an overhead, a teleport (yes you can cancel moves into teleport, not sure which, but you cannot cancel specials) or a throw.
Tick throws are so annoying that people quit games online if you do them often enough, even when they are teching them. Inching up to your opponent with block, starting a combo string that they block, and attempting a throw is a good example of a tick throw. The real issue with using this in your mixup is you need to be close to an opponent to land it, much closer than lets say, a poke, a sweep or an overhead, and raidens overhead is pretty slow (forward 4, or 3,3,4)
Just keep it in mind because predicting your opponent also means trying to stop his throws as well, and the best time to use it is when you are up close.
Meter Usage:
I have not experimented enough with the ex move combo’s to say that Raiden can do -more- than 50% damage in each. But numerically speaking, unless you can do the 50% combo that Ive seen so far, you will only kill with 3 total combos.
Therefore, I suggest saving meter for that very same reason. Combo breakers will keep your heavy hitting opponents from reaping the benefits of landing that big hit that will drastically differentiate your health bars.
While you do have an excellent answer for projectiles, or safe players (ex teleport), the knowledge of how hard your opponent is hitting you should give you the best judgement whether to save for that combo breaker or if this will either save you from one or end the round in your favor.
Typically speaking, if you are on 3 bars of meter or about to get full, its safe to spend on one bar rather than sit at full expecting to generate.
Now when the topic of x-ray attacks come up, raidens x-ray raw is (i think) 29%, which being able to hit your opponent is required, so regardless of the situation its best to hit with a combo that pops your opponent up and then hit x-ray, if you can play without getting nervous I suggest this. The only advantage to using xray raw is the invincibility it offers, so maybe if its the second round where you dont need meter you could end the match with this, but I dont suggest it as its unsafe, Ive been it out of x-ray invulnerability enough to say so.
If you ARE using it for damage, its likely with a bnb combo you’ll do 40-49% ish percent, which is great, but ultimately still wont help you unless you can do a 50% combo, because you’ll still require 3 combos to finish the game.
Where do you stand
In the end, where you and your opponent knows the game and has all of your tools available to you, a fighting game becomes a mixture of Poker and muscle memory. Poker because the better you can read your opponent, the more you can predict his offense and block it. The better you can predict your opponents movements the better you can know when he wont be blocking or where he will be blocking so you can hit him elsewhere, your mixup also needs to be good enough where you wont be predictable to be caught in the same predicament where your opponent (or your friends at home) know what you do often enough to learn to counter it.
(Yes yes, where is the Raiden specific info here?) Its been said earlier, use your teleport when you know you will catch your opponent recovering from an attack. Fundamentals such as sweep when he attacks high, overhead when he attacks low, jumping electric fly when he jumps away, if you jump and attack cancel into electric fly to fly over your opponents offense, all of these at this point shouldnt need explanation.
Where you stand with skill however:
If you suck at combos, 3,3,4 is 20% so you need 5 combos to win
If you dont suck at combos:
2,2,electric grab, uppercut is 24% (4 combos to win)
3,3,4, electric fly is 24% (4 combos)
If your good at combos, use the Kaamos BnB!
2,2,electric grab, forward+3, 1, 2, electric fly (29%)
^you can add a crouching 3 before electric fly to make it 30%
The reason why I like this combo, is that it almost meets the 33% mark, it doesnt require timing dash pokes and air juggle type technology, and pushes your opponent into the corner, its simple, simplicity is harder to miss than gigantic combos.
Regardless, add meter and get more damage if you wish, add enough to make it over 33% and you’ll win in 3 combos consistently.
Regardless, combo into electric fly, and spam 3,3,4 or whatever you like, because it all works together in the corner, and expect to do more than 33% and put SO MUCH PRESSURE on your opponent to be there where you hit him hardest. If you get out, you have the tools to get behind him and push him right back in there.
Final Notes
First hit any match rewards a full bar of meter.
You can cancel normal jumping attacks into special ones, and if you hit them in the air the special combos, this works for electric fly as well as other peoples attacks (such as dive kicks and air throws)
Please add any info to the thread that you think is useful, as long as it is not already posted by someone else