What are you guys favourite ways of pressuring with RR? It seems to me he’s best used as a hit-and-run rushdown character, but I don’t have much in the way of block strings.
One thing I’ve been experimenting with in training mode is using the Bear Trap and Shrapnel Trap at the end of simple chains, then going in with Wild Ripper to catch the counter hit.
I’ve also been looking for a valid way of using his hyper trap outside of combos for mixups. One thing I’ve been trying is going through ABCf.CSAACS then laying the trap when I land, calling Wesker’s gunshot, burrowing behind them and going for instant overheads, but it won’t work against tech rolls.
I’ve been ending blockstrings in Boulder Trap, but I have no idea how safe that is. It seems to work because he steps back and the boulder hits overhead, but I don’t know if that’s because it’s a good tactic, or people just have no idea wtf RR is doing lol. Probably the latter because I’m terrible with this character.
I know someone else has mentioned it recently, but c.H xx Wild Ripper is pretty nice when at mid-range. Bit risky if they’re jumping in but you could always cancel to boulder trap which may make it safe or even mad hopper to punish them trying to jump in and hit you.
For fast pressure strings a fast j.b -> j.c seems to work the best for me for a reasonably quick overhead it seems good as a cross-up like you mentioned. Fast float nade is excellent too but that doesn’t feel like an attack you can just reliably land by dashing in and throwing it out. Needs to be a mixup situation to allow RR to not die.
I’ve never done it, but the most obvious way I’d do that seems to be to do it while calling an assist and perhaps crossing up over them. I think doing a straight up head-on rocket skates might get you hit out of the recovery while trying to get back in, so it’d be dependent on assist cover, and at first thought feels like RR is going to be open to punishment at worst and at best the assist hits but you’re in Rocket skates animation so you can’t really follow up with anything anyway.
Empty wild ripper could be an alternative way of regaining ground after advancing guard. It’s not as fast or potentially long ranged as rocket skates but ripper can be cancelled into specials/supers to give you some semblance of safety on whiff or something…?
Pure theory crafting at the moment, but I’ve been mainly trying to use ripper in offense situations and rocket skates is more for escaping, although I can get behind my friend’s ghost rider with skates sometimes. Skates for me says:
Run away very fast
get out of the corner very fast
cross-up someone slow and laggy very fast
cancel air S into skates for positioning.
I’m curious about number 4 mainly myself since it’s an option to help open people up, but I’m not sure the best way to make good mixups off of a J.S xx rocket skates -> Something else.
I believe you’re right. Skates definitely needs to be covered by assists, and it’s probably better for him all-round to have it covered anyway, since a lockdown assist would give you freedom to do what you want. Unless RR’s recovery can be shortened with a Skates>cancelled into Special but yeah, best to have the assist
Agreed about Wild Ripper too, that’s probably the better option actually.
Speaking of Skates, is there a way to wavedash with Skates?
Grounded Rocket skates has the most mobility Can be cancelled into new directions. On the ground it’s sort of infinite and you can skate back and forth repeatedly. Good for doing nothing. Once air-borne you only seem to get a single rocket skates. I think if you cancel the rocket skates back to the ground and you aren’t too high it may reset the counter and allow for more skating, but I was browsing a friends bible the other day and there was mention if you hit the ground while rocket skating you get 11 frames of recovery. with the right spacing you can end rocket skates just above the ground in front of your opponent and press a button for an overhead before you land, although the timing on that could be pretty tight.
I’m quoting this again because I’ve been looking at this a little and I really like this maneouver now, but what I’ve been doing is f.H into boulder trap before the rocket skates, giving you the following. Because you hop back after boulder trap you can cancel out of wild ripper at different times with boulder then skate over the top of their head then drop down on them with j.C and make it ambiguous. You can also just do nothing then hit them with a low when you land. This existed before but putting a boulder trap in their too adds an extra level of quasi-safety/panic/distraction for your opponent, and I guess theoretically would allow for a double over-head combined with the falling j.C coming down on them. 1 overhead or 2? 1 overhead then a low? Triple overheard with a fast float nade?
Of course with the boulder you can also dash in and hit low for an unblockable without crossing them up, and the timing/execution is fiddly but you can put out the boulder, have it instantly trigger since you place it on them then dash in and throw them before the boulder even hits them.
Also additionally I looked at rocket skates a little bit. I can call Doom plasma beam then rocket skate in from full-screen and combo off a hit. There is more potential on this too:
My standard skate style is Zig-Zag -------- Fxx UF xx DF
I have a new one now too, let’s arbitrary call it Parallel because of the 2 F movements ------------ F xx UF xx F
I’m starting at full screen I call Doom plasma beam assist and rocket skate in:
Zig-Zag: On hit you can combo into wild ripper then launch on block you can wild ripper into boulder trap then mix them up again with Gief2K’s Overskate technique or pretty much whatever else you want.
Parallel: On hit you can combo j.C into c.C* then launch (this is easier in the corner but I got it to work at mid-screen) on block you’re dropping on top of them with a j.C -It’s not directly on top of them so I’d worried about getting stuffed if someone put out a normal on a character/spacing dependent basis. Parallel in the corner should be nice since you’ll be landing pretty much on top of them for the most part.
Then on top of this you can mixup up either way on block so zig-zag into fast float nade or parallel then just drop and hit low immediately or drop then throw them upon landing perhaps too.
Edit: Also you can wave-dash with skates sort of but it’s actually kind of slower. It’s a way to wave-dash while staying close to the ground. It’s essentially a rep of F xx U xx F but you cancel the U skates before you leave the ground so you go in a straight line but are allowed to do it because you’re technically changing the direction of the skate. Just bear in mind once air-borne you get a single skate so use it wisely.
Edit: * = There are easier/better ways than this. j.B, j.C then launch when you land for example. Timing on linking the j.c is inconsistent.
Sure, feel free to link to any of my posts on here. I’m trying to be active as I can in here because I want to flesh his meta-game out as much as possible for the benefit of all of us.
Anyway, I’ve been trying to get a damage/hitstun reset setup by finding a way to combo into the oil bomb, which would hold the opponent in place until I manage to tag Dr. Doom in and do superjump foot dive or something. I have some ideas that may involve ammy but, so far, I’ve been trying to just activate the oil trap and tag in a character and see if i could follow it up. My efforts have been very close but unsuccessful.
You always have great posts haha, great rocket skate stuff.
I’ve been trying out hidden missiles recently instead of plasma beam, it makes burrow mixups a little harder to pull off but it makes unblockables absolutely dead easy to do. I don’t think the timing is all that tight, unless I’m missing something, with the speed of the dash after boulder trap, even with a slight delay it would take absolutely godlike reflexes to block each one in the correct order and either will continue the full combo anyway.
I use pretty much the same unblockable reset with firebrand, but something interesting seeing as this is the correct subforum; you can actually use rocket’s spitfire twice in place of sent’s drones there. I’m pretty sure it 100% tight, I haven’t tested it with everything, but it has beaten out everything I have tried so far.
If you can do that, you could probably make it an unblockable reset as well with the normal wild ripper, cancel in to boulder trap letting the combo end then dashing in for the low unblockable.
Thanks, I have been trying to not rely on teleports as much so it was something I was interested in looking at anyway. I feel a good RR should work on having a bunch of different setups, mixups and techniques. Seems one of his biggest strengths is all his different options.
On the subject of hidden missiles assist:
What’s your other assist in that team? does it cover teleport mixups perhaps?
Have you found that a lot of people simply just run when it comes to missiles? I used to use missiles assist in Vanilla to help cover Thor so he could get in and my friends just kept on running away from them to help avoid the possibility of any mixups. I’m curious about how well you think the assist holds up relative to plasma beam, which I like because it controls the ground space and I feel that’s where rocket wants to be almost all the time.
Combo into oil bomb seems like a pretty fiddly one to get. It’s the special I seem to use the least out of all Rocket’s stuff. Easy to get out, but kind of tough to actually ignite it without the bear trap bounce and I don’t like what all the hits do to the scaling. If you were looking for a damage/hitstun reset you may find it better to aim to combo into net trap since that produces a hard knock-down (and I wonder whether you raw tagging in would reset the throw style scaling on a hit with the net trap?) Ironically the only way that I know of to combo into net trap is using the oil bomb flame. If you ignite oil bomb when someone is standing on it and not in a knock-down state and it starts hitting them dashing in and using net trap will hit them and pull them out of the oil fire, which reduces the number of hits the fire will do.
I was at a friends and I read the bible a little bit. One tip it mentioned which is something I always try for now with oil bomb is that after you throw it you ideally want to light it with standing H and then special cancel it into whatever special you want, so it may require a good lockdown assist but a hit on a standing opponent could give you enough time to put an oil bomb at their feet then light it. If the whole thing combos then lead into net trap and raw tag into doom and OTG the hard knockdown.
My other assist is Firebrand’s heavy fireball, I think its called Hellish Spitfire or something similar. If you mean your teleport mixups, it works, but only when you are kinda close, as defense against opponents, no not really at all.
Not exactly sure what you mean there, if they run away they aren’t really helping themselves because they have to contend with all of rockets zoning tools + hidden missiles + all of rockets rushdown tools he could throw out. If they run away I can use it for a burrow mixup anyway once they are forced to block the missiles, if you mean dodging the missiles, I haven’t really encountered people being that desperate to avoid them, but I guess it won’t help them too much with Rocket’s different projectiles anyway.
Compared to plasma beam, it is far less spammable I guess because Doom is very vulnerable during, so I have to make sure I’m keeping y opponent blocking or just out of Doom’s danger zone when doing it. However, right now Hidden Missiles is just adding so much to my team, I finally feel I’m starting to get this game, I’m still not exactly good, but with those missiles I can keep my opponent blocking, a very important thing for my team seeing as both Rocket and Firebrand can set up unblockables off of that, I’ve even found a really evil reset with Firebrand that is unblockable and catches them no matter which way they tech.
The trade off is the easy horizontal domination, however rocket is obviously not weak in that area himself and Firebrand’s assist has a large hitbox and stays out for a long time making it a pretty good extra tool for controlling horizontal space. I always felt weak with an opponent directly above me before, there are options such as upback skates into whatever or a preemptive log trap, but I find that area scarier in general than the horizontal ground space.
Plus rocket has his c.H which is a pretty hilarious move I’ve been finding. Currently my biggest weakness is opponents teleporting in on me, I kinda suck at blocking them it seems and I don’t really have any reactive tools to deal with it, I basically just try to stand on a trap if I fear a teleport haha.
Something I’ve been trying to do is get block strings long enough for the hidden missiles to connect.
Currently what I’m doing is
:l:+:a2:,:h: > :d::h: > :f::h: > :qcf:
but that still gives my opponent enough time to jump out meaning I can’t go for the unblockable, but of course I can still meet them in the air, so it’s not exactly bad. Plus I’m not sure but I think they might be able to hit me after the wild ripper, I should probably test that some more.
Wild ripper is I think -11 on block, but you can cancel it into traps and such if you want to make it safe or into rocket skates to move somewhere else. cancelling into bear trap would probably make it super safe because that’s like +22 on block and you could maybe combo off it on hit. If someone is super jumping over me without calling an assist then I’d either go for a cross-under or a zig-zag rocket skates to just go to the other side of the screen and carry on being annoying or set up a teleport mixup from over there instead. The way that I personally would describe it is that I want them to know that super jumping in is going to be fruitless and force them into low jump height or even a ground approach where I can actually touch them. If they’re content to carry on doing that then put down some traps and get them to land on them. Rockets traps only work on people in really low to/on the ground region so I kind of want them to try and approach me from there.
I just mentioned missiles because it’s an assist I used to use and my friends would run from it because they’d rather not be forced to block any. Being more mobile decreases the number of missiles you potentially have to block and a lot of the time my friends blocked them jumping because it removes any high low mixup opportunity for me as the aggressor. I know it promotes a bit more runaway and that should be good, but yeah I guess it’s just I’m feeling a good beam helps him better to cover the ground and it’s easy to run and avoid the super jump approach imo. Missiles is never a bad assist I would just be concerned about doom being so open to full-screen beam when calling it and rocket not having anything really fast that would help cover doom while he is out so by all means chip in more because doom is on my team and I’m curious about what kind of benefits missiles would grant. Seems like it’d be hard to get missiles out as often as I would like, but that’s just complete speculation.
Dealing with teleporters is a pain for rocket because if I try and do a crossup teleport while calling an assist and they do the same they get a happy birthday. It’s more about you taking momentum off them and keeping it for yourself. Rocket dies so quickly and lacks priority it just makes him a much more risky character than wesker or dante or vergil which is why lots of good mixups and pressure works well for him. I feel rocket’s offense is his defense. You want them either dealing with traps, your mixups or both constantly. I think one of rocket’s strengths is being able to weight mixups really strongly in his favour.
Speaking of helping prevent pressure I thought I’d share some interesting tech I read in the guide and researched further in the lab:
[media=youtube]AgEB-Ay8IfM[/media]
The Guide states that claymore trap has the ability to absorb one attack, essentially giving rocket 1 hit of super armour in certain situations. This will work best/only on grounded hits. It seems rocket has to block the aerial before the claymore absorbs the hitbox, but as you can see from the video the claymore can sometimes take priority in absorbing the attack and having it miss rocket. It needs some more exploration but it’s a pretty interesting thing to know. Feels like blockstring into a non-hitting claymore could be pretty handy if it grants you some temporary super armour provided you make sure an opponent’s attack will intersect with the claymore. Could give you some nice protection against getting caught short by someone teleporting without an assist. I just looked at it a bit now anyway. Needs some more investigation as sometimes rocket did get hit in the vid when it seems he shouldn’t have.
Edit: when placed close to ghost rider it looks like the chain hitbox and the claymore simply don’t intersect which is why he got hit.
Wow that is quite amazing, it’s something I can see being patched out though unfortunately, but a great piece of information none the less. By the way, those close ones being beaten out were just due to the hitbox of Ghost Rider’s chain, it’s a bit wonky on some of his moves, especially j.H.
And yeah I can see what you mean about rocket wanting his opponents grounded, my gameplan with rocket has been mostly as my team “scout” I guess haha, I tend to play very defensively and just moving to where my opponent isn’t, throwing out safe projectiles and covering my Hidden Missiles. If my opponent makes a mistake or I manage to get a setup, I go in for the kill then.
Doom’s hidden missiles just have massive utility all over my team, I wouldn’t be able to touch of death with Firebrand without them and I would feel a little less safe annoying my opponent with Rocket, I found it a decent trade for the Plasma Beam as I really only used it with my team for more horizontal control and mixups. Considering all 3 of Firebrand’s assists are for controlling horizontal space and I’ve been taking Rocket’s Spitfire Twice assist for lockdown (and even more Firebrand unblockables haha) I am finding Hidden Missiles just suits my team more overall. Also some teleporters just win that assistport war outright against Rocket it seems (as you mentioned in your post with the happy birthday scenario).
With that information, it might be pretty much totally safe to cancel wild ripper into claymore trap. As a follow on effect, if the opponent is forced to block the trap there it just may be what I’m looking for in my pressure string to force a grounded Missiles block into unblockable. Push blocking any part of the string obviously breaks it but I can still skate in and hope they end up blocking the missiles so I can do it regardless.
Something else I’ve been doing a bit is c.H x N xx log trap or TK spitfire. Just because people’s reaction to being repeatedly forced to block c.H seems to be super jump and if they crouch the spitfire can catch them with the second hit anyway, depending on spacing.
As far as enhancing how missiles works for you you’re looking to keep them in as much stun as you possibly can?
Based on this:
:l:+:a2:,:h: > :d::h: > :f::h: > :qcb: Then either another Wild Ripper or perhaps go straight into bear trap. If you’re trying to keep them grounded then after the hop back after claymore they should be in range for a bear trap which would give you some +22 or so on block. which would hopefully close the gap between block string and missiles. If that’s still not enough time to have the missiles come down maybe Wild Ripper into Overskates to allow for some cross-up mixups and would give them very little time to actually escape.
Assuming they can’t push-block you away while missiles are hitting that’s a pretty interesting setup you’re working on to land what I assume are boulder unblockables? If you can’t keep them in block-stun constantly try and find some way to throw a mixup in. If missiles are really close to hitting then they may just sit there and take it or once they realise sitting there doing nothing doesn’t work then they’ll be pushing buttons and aside from a throw missiles should help keep you reasonably safe.
:h: > :d::h: > :f::h: > :qcf: