Plasma Sword/Rain

Introduction

Overview

Rain is Bilstein's daughter and as you'd expect from a villainess, her gameplan is built around oppressing the opponent from a distance. Rain sports a Plasma Scythe, giving her some of the longest ranged normals in the game. Additionally, she can use her Vertical Sword and Spinning Sword specials to further keep out enemies. This range of hers is given a potent lethality that even some top tiers lack thanks to her supers and more importantly her Plasma Field. Rain's Plasma Field, Freezing Blade, causes any hit to freeze the opponent for easy combos, including the initial hit of the field. If that weren't enough, she can juggle into this off her 2K string and extend into further juggles from a Freeze Blade hit, letting her get massive damage. Her other supers are useful too, with Destroy Spear and Galactica Storm fitting into her gameplan very nicely. These strengths however come with massive flaws. Rain's normals are on the slower end which can cause her a lot of trouble in close range situations. Furthermore, her mixups are quite weak and her specials are mostly bad with niche uses, limiting her special cancel options. With that said though, her sheer damage output and range makes no matchup truly unwinnable and good use of guard cancel parries can help mitigate her defensive woes.

Strengths

Weaknesses

Range Advantage: Rain uses a scythe which alongside her projectiles lets her fight from ranges other characters can't reach. Freezing Blade ToD potential: Rain's Plasma Field can both be comboed into and off of, letting her potentially loop Freezing Blades for massive damage. This makes Plasma Field a constant threat in her toolkit. Metered Options: On top of her incredibly strong Plasma Field, both of Rain's supers are very good, with Destroy Spear being a near unavoidable projectile with high chip damage and Galactica Storm serving as both a reversal and consistent juggle ender. Great Anti-Oki Tools: In well-practiced hands, this character is almost immune to being pressured when she's knocked down. Between Ground Roll Cancel Pinwheel, Insta-Stand Reversal Galactica Storm, and Insta-Stand Step->Plasma Field (which, a reminder: is a win condition for her at pretty much any stage of a match), most characters are almost always taking bigger risks than they can ever get the reward for to make up for Rain's ability to panic button into a round win.

Slow Moves: In exchange for her long range, Rain's normals are on the slower end of the cast. This hurts more than the range helps as close range combat tends to be more valuable in Plasma Sword. She's more reliant on parries for defense compared to other characters. Poor Mixups: Rain has no meaningfully plus on block normals and while her throw is rewarding, it's difficult to threaten at her optimal range. She does have an overhead but it's on the slower end and has poor damage. Combined, she's reliant on forcing the opponent into mistakes to get meaningful hits, and while she is good that, it's far worse actually being able to open up opponents. Weak Special Selection: Most of Rain's specials are subpar at best, with limited uses. Because of this, she rarely gets big damage without either meter or a lot of highly difficult juggles. Needs Meter: A symptom of both her weak specials and her high reliance on Plasma Field, Rain feels very "stuck" once she runs out of bar, forcing her to rely mostly on low damage containment pokes.

Move List

Vertical Normals

5A

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
16	Mid	10	-	-	-	0	-1	-	Ground
A quick and relatively long vertical slash. While slightly slower than most 5As, Rain's is still one of her fastest normals and thus important for her pressure thanks to it being 0. More importantly, it also has multiple strong strings out of it that can lead to mixups or juggles.

5A,A

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
9	Mid	-	-	-	-	-	-22	-	Ground
A follow up poke with huge range. Somewhat slow but combos from 5A making it great for confirming into a juggle. Whiffs on crouching opponents at a distance and against small characters. Poor frame advantage but high pushback.

5A,B

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
14	Low	-	-	-	-	-	-20	-	Ground
A low, natural comboing extension from 5A. Better than 5A in almost every way due to how it has to be gaurded and its slightly better frame data.

5A, 5A, 5A

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
16	Mid	-	-	-	-	-	-25	-	Ground
Rain does an overhead looking slash that (unfortunately) just hits mid. Once again has long range but it's too slow to combo from 5A, 5A on grounded hits, as well as being more unsafe, making it mostly useless. Can be canceled into specials to make it safer but Rain's special cancel options aren't great. Generally should only be used for juggle filler.

5AAK

5AAK or 5ABK

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	Mid	-	-	-	-	-	-12	-	Ground
A launcher tacked onto the end of the 5A string. At first glance at the frame data, it seems very good: -12 is only barely unsafe, and this combo can lead into either a VERY simple 1-bar, high damage conversion (small dash->2KxSuper) or it can convert into fancier, more advanced juggles (like dash->5K loops). However, the 5AAK tends to whiff on standing opponents on block, and from further out on hit. It also has some finnicky timing on when it'll accept each input, so you'll need to practice the string briefly to get a feel for it--but this also makes it harder to hit confir. Still, once you have this conversion down into super, you'll have a very high damage combo starter at your finger tips.

5AAB

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground

5AABB

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground

2A

2A

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
13	Low	13	-	-	-	-4	-5	-	Ground
The sister of Rain's godly 2B. It is worse in virtually every way except perhaps pushout. If the opponent blocks this at footsie range they are basically pushed offscreen, that's how far the pushout is.

Horizontal Normals

5B

5B

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
15	-	13	-	-	-	-4	-4	-	Ground
One of the better 5Bs in the game due to its swing height, speed, range, and combo utility. An excellent low-commitment containment tool.

2B

2B

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
13	-	13	-	-	-	+0	-2	-	Ground
One of the best "check" tools in the game, and a vital part of Rain's poke kit that is hindered only by a lack of frame advantage. The spacing it creates afterwards keeps the ball in her court even without frame advantage versus most of the cast, particularly if she has plasma field in the chamber. Pretty much has to be jumped over or made to whiff in order to be punished.

Kick Normals

K

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground

Jumping Normals

While Jumping A

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground

While Falling A

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground

Special Moves

Shiden
236B

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground

Shiden: Kai
214B

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground

Byakko Hou
64K

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground

623A/B
Guren

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground

Ashura
222

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground

Gauge Moves

Engetsu
236AB

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground

Galactica Storm
214AB

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	14	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground
Rain's Galactica Storm is an incredible reversal and anti-air super thanks to its invincibility, speed, and generous hitbox. It's only really drawback is its lack of safety and, more importantly, the drain of meter means one less PF, which is what the character is centered around.

Plasma Revenge
AM

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground

Plasma Reflect
BM

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground

Plasma Field - Plasma Sword
BK

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground

Miscellaneous

Throw
5AB

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground

Strategy

Matchups

Vs. Byakko (4:6)- Once Byakko has 1 bar, the vast majority of your movelist gets whiff or block punished by dash super. You are prey to Byakko's standard pressure and not even your might jump back A/B is safe from run in-> reaction swords super. Genuinely an uphill battle for Rain, but the saving grace for you is that Byakko explodes if you touch him.

Vs. Gerelt/Claire(5:5/5.5:4.5) - Rain's i8 Pinwheel and invincible super are some of the best options in the game at blowing up Gerelt's stand throw->jump oki, but Gerelt/Claire's 214K and 214A+B are potent reversals for many of Rain's strings. She wildly out-damages the fencers but tends to get grounded out by their more patient playstyle, simply because they have better neutral tools and 66K is a better "screw it, we ball" sort of move than Rain's arsenal. Gerelt's ability to punish PF on block from pretty much any of its reasonable ranges is a difference maker.

Vs. Zelkin(5.5:4.5) The very real threat of dying to Rain's Plasma Field (or losing the lifelead to 214A+B) coupled with the fact Zelkin has a much harder time dealing with i8 Pinwheel than other characters makes this a rare example of Zelk having to respect a non-top tier.

Combos