[CS2] Rachel vs. Hakumen

[[SpA]Relentless]

Might be obvious advice, but I'll write it anyway: Don't do random fullscreen TD at neutral against Hakumen. He will either cut it (thus preventing any chance at dash in & mixup) or 6d all the projectiles. In which case you shouldn't dash in and try to go for mixups either, becauses chances are he will hit you with the 6d that was activated by TD and you will look pretty dumb

[Kuuhaku]

You can still do it for wind regain. It's actually hard for him to D/cut it it if he doesn't time it right. Even if he does cut it though, if you're at the life advantage he still has to chase you down... so the orb isn't very helpful in that situation since you're full screen, have full wind meter, and you're probably setting up your stuff.

One thing to be aware of though is that he can D between the second to last and last projectile (which is a lot easier/more beneficial than Ding TD itself) since that's the only place in TD that there is a gap. You can bait this by running up and throwing. But yeah, be careful. If you're not fast enough he'll punch you in the face.

[[SpA]Relentless]

It doesn't matter if it's hard or not. It's there and therefore something to be considered when playing against Hakumen. You can do it once to see if the opponent knows about it. If he does, stop doing it. It was performed on me before (both cutting TD and 6ding TD, all of it not just the last hit).

[Kuuhaku]

Relentless;1057323']It doesn't matter if it's hard or not. It's there and therefore something to be considered when playing against Hakumen. You can do it once to see if the opponent knows about it. If he does' date=' stop doing it. It was performed on me before (both cutting TD and 6ding TD, all of it not just the last hit).[/quote']

Once again- you have to look at risk/reward.

Success outcomes for Hakumen if he cuts TD before:

If Hakumen Ds it. You gain all your wind back and a free pumpkin summon.

If Hakumen cuts it, it's the same thing.

Summary: Hakumen gets nothing and you're at a neutral situation where Rachel has advantage. He has orb- so what? You have pumpkin.

Fail outcomes:

Hakumen eats 1-2k damage and Rachel gets all her summons back anyway.

Success outcomes for Ding the last projectile on TD:

If Rachel recklessly goes in for mix up, Hakumen can catch you and get some damage.

If Rachel doesn't, at least you save yourself one guard primer if it's level 4 or 5 and she can't really punish you for it anyway.

Summary of success: You do things right and you get damage or save yourself a guard primer.

Fail outcomes: You mistime it and eat about 1-2k.

So yes- you want to be careful. But he also has to be careful. It's still a situation where no matter what he does, Rachel is at more of an advantage. You can also do things to throw off his timing. It's not really a great situation for Hakumen. A better situation for him would be to try to cut TD closer to you. But... at full screen he can't do much about it unless you decide to be stupid.

Unless you're being super predictable, they're not going to get it right 100% of the time. That's why in situations like these you have to weigh your options and pick the better one. If he cuts it, it's no skin off your back. The point of TD is wind regain. The hidden mix up during the higher level ones is just a bonus.

[[SpA]Relentless]

Rachel might be at an advantage no matter what Hakumen does, but by simply blocking it he just makes it bigger since he offers her a free mixup attempt. I don't know how a Hakumen player feels about it, but that's a valuable reward in my opinion (not giving her the free mixup).

Maybe I should re-word my advice to "Don't do high level TD unless you know it's going to hit or be blocked". In most cases it will be a waste of meter. I agree with the rest you said.

[[SpA]Relentless]

Two more things I was told yesterday:

Don't cat chair if he attacks with B moves a lot. He can cancel them into D on reaction and either avoid and punish the cat chair, or catch the cat chair with the counter directly.

And don't abuse jump back/IAD back -> pumpkin summon/j236X/etc. if he's about halfscreen away, cause he can catch you with Enma (the uppercut after the command dash) if you're predictable. It's invincible from head to shoulder so you have to barrier block it if he does it while you're in the air.

[Kuuhaku]

Relentless;1109406']Two more things I was told yesterday:

Don't cat chair if he attacks with B moves a lot. He can cancel them into D on reaction and either avoid and punish the cat chair, or catch the cat chair with the counter directly.

And don't abuse jump back/IAD back -> pumpkin summon/j236X/etc. if he's about halfscreen away, cause he can catch you with Enma (the uppercut after the command dash) if you're predictable. It's invincible from head to shoulder so you have to barrier block it if he does it while you're in the air.

I think you mean- "It's air unblockable so you have to barrier it." I'm pretty sure invincibility has nothing to do with that.

But yeah. Hakumen can catch you for jumping around like a moron. Hotaru's really good for that too (if you're jumping near the corner you'd better not push a button or not be holding barrier). However... to avoid Enma, you could just super jump back and try to summon and it's free since he can't do anything out of Kishuu to catch you. Keep you in mind though that he can try to call you out with j.C if you do it without waiting for him to do something, but that's more of an annoyance than a threat.

In general, using cat chair against Hakumen is a bad idea since he has actually alot of ways to bait it. If you see him whiffing 5A above you or doing 5A 6B mix up... he's pretty much waiting for you to kill yourself. It will guard point some of his C attacks and hit him though and once I had it go through Hotaru... but that's kind of iffy to rely on.

[[SpA]Relentless]

Invincibility has to do with it in that you can't use air pokes to hit him out of Enma, you literally HAVE to barrier block it when you jumped cause everything else means you'll give him a free combo. But yeah, of course mainly because it's airunblockable, and I was too lazy to type it all out (thought it was obvious... I think in CS2 it's always safer to assume that a certain move is air u/b if you don't know for sure, lol).

Superjump seems like a fairly good idea to switch things up (and not only in this matchup), I shall try that the next time.

[Deikan]

I'm having Hakumen problems. Everytime I do my hit strings they always manage to a get a counter on me, I do my pumpkins mix-ups and I still get countered. I play rush down to patient and I'm still getting beaten, what can I do?

[Kronikhall]

sounds to me like the hakumen is mashing counter. just bait the counter. purposefully pause in your string and if you see the counter, then start a high damage combo on him. that should dissuade him from doing it again.

PS: i assume you mean "block-strings." hit strings implies you're actually hitting (ie: comboing) them.

[Deikan]

sounds to me like the hakumen is mashing counter. just bait the counter. purposefully pause in your string and if you see the counter, then start a high damage combo on him. that should dissuade him from doing it again.

PS: i assume you mean "block-strings." hit strings implies you're actually hitting (ie: comboing) them.

Sorry, my bad, I meant block-strings.

[Kuuhaku]

Another problem you might have is that your blockstrings might be the same thing over and over. Do you do overheads in the same spots? Are your mixups easily telegraphed? It's risky for Hakumen to just mash counter while in blockstun because you can chain into throw and get a free combo. If he really is just doing that, then that's your answer. But you should also look carefully at how you do your block strings. For example, if I'm against a Ragna who does 6B mix up the same way over and over again, I can 2C him for free.

[kotokot]

Rachel blockstrings does not have gaps, except 5B>5C, 5B>j.B on ib and anything>236A(either gap, either punishable on ib). You must change and vary your blockstrings. Sometimes you can punish mashing D with delaying or using empty jumps/236B. And throw. About pumpkin if he using catches on reaction you can try to not hit with pumpkin, something like using 2D before pumpkin hits.

[gli]

Be careful of frog oki as well. Off of activation if you are anywhere near him when he gets a counter off of George you will get caught in the counter anyway.

[tofurr]

Be careful of frog oki as well. Off of activation if you are anywhere near him when he gets a counter off of George you will get caught in the counter anyway.

This x[N]

[SpartasSKiLiZ]

I think i hate this match-up more than any other character now. Facing Hakumen in Extend is really going to be a pain. just watched 3 videos of Haku v Rach and all 3 rachel's lost. Im going to really hate facing Hakumen now.

[gli]

Hakumen's 6B goes over Rachel's low normals. This situation occurs frequently if the Haku likes the 5A whiff on crouching into 6B or throw. If you can, just punish using standing normals. If you react to 6B you might as well react with 2C to get big damage (obsolete in EX in terms of damage).

[[SpA]Relentless]

If you react to 6B you might as well react with 2C to get big damage (obsolete in EX in terms of damage).

Don't do this against people that actually know stuff about their character. Hakumen can cancel all his B normals into D counters, so if he knows what he's doing and sees you catchairing his 6B, he can cancel it into a counter on reaction, either catching the catchair with the counter directly or avoiding it entirely, setting you up for a nice CH combo.

[kotokot]

Hakumen's 6B goes over Rachel's low normals. This situation occurs frequently if the Haku likes the 5A whiff on crouching into 6B or throw. If you can, just punish using standing normals. If you react to 6B you might as well react with 2C to get big damage (obsolete in EX in terms of damage).

he can also cancel on whiff his 5/2 A/B, if you try punish whiffed 5A you can eat 5B/6A CH for free travel into corner. Chair is bad idea, he can cancel A/B into catch and C attacks except 3C(and charged 4C lol) into yukikadze/shippu(close range yukikadze, farther charged shippu).

[gli]

Yeah looks like 2C is more useless in EX.

Thanks for that other info though I honestly didn't know. 6B > 236236D or just normal drive counters seem to be a legit OS for Hakumen against cat chair.