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: 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.

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. Only Spinning Sword is particularly good but even andit is flawed.

Move List

Vertical Normals

5A

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
16	Mid	-	-	-	-	-	0	-	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	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	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 makes it safe against most characters.

5A, 5A, 5A

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
16	Mid	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground
Rain does an overhead looking slash that 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.

5A, 5A, 5C

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

Sidestep A

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

While Running A

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

Horizontal Normals

B

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

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

Rasetsu Zan
214AB

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

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

Combos