Overview
You wanna become a true Ramlethal Gamer but somehow you have no idea how she works or whats her gameplay? Dont you worry fam, I, a certified Ram Gamer will teach you the basics so you can finally play like the big boys.
Introduction
Before we begin this is not a Full In-Depth Answer to everything Ram Guide, Im here to guide you in the right direction so you can start learning all the advanced cursed stuff (which ill probably make a guide for just that later depending on how well this one does)
To become a Ramlethal Gamer you first need to understand what makes her so special and opressive, and its her disgusting range with her f.S and HS normals, as well as the unrelenting pressure she can apply if she gets her enemies in the corner with Bajoneto (236S – 236HS) making it that if you are smart enough with keeping your range and conditioning your enemies to either try hasty decisions that will ultimately get them punished by losing half their health or just respect your pressure and do nothing then you can pretty much keep your turn the entire round unless they waste their burst trying to get you away from them or either spend meter to YRC or even worse, use a super to try and hit you on your pressure (which to be fair its something you have to take into account with any character you play, not just Ram)
Get a good hold of these basic things and you will be taking wins left and right and finally you will achieve Ramlethal Gaming.
Ram’s Gameplan and Neutral
Your entire goal during the match will be to take your enemies to the corner using your far reaching normals to force them to retreat and eventually start your unrelenting pressure so that once you get a hit they basically explode.
There are 2 buttons specifically that will help you reach this goal: f.S and j.S
These are your Warcrime Buttons, and what makes Ram so scary to approach in the Neutral since Ram has the movility other characters with equally long normals like Nagoriyuki dont have.
(NOTE: Moves with low profile such as I-NOs Stroke the Big Tree and Sol Night Raid Vortex will go under your f.S so be cafeful with that)
Although these moves are very good please note you wont be able to combo off them into something other than HS unless you get a big Counter or spend tension into RRC, again your goal is to force them into the corner first and foremost since thats where you will deal your most amount of damage, however depending on your posiiton and how far away you got the hit you might be able to combo f.S > HS > 236HS for an immediate corner carry and maybe even a wallbreak if you choose so by using your S version of Bajoneto, although if you dont get the wallbreak you will have to run and pick up your swords again, so make sure to get it.
Anti-Airs
Okay so now you understand that you have to take your enemies to the corner, but what if they like to jump and throw moves at you a lot? Well heres a great chance to condition your opponent to stop jumping and doing all that annoying funky stuff since Ram has some pretty decent anti-air options:
This move isnt so special reward wise just like most 6Ps in the game, you press it, they get hit and get pushed back, its more of a statement to tell your enemies “Hey stop jumping I know how to punish you”
Basically you wont get any fancy combos off this but you will be pretty safe doing it to answer their air approach.
This move is a stapple in Ramlethal combos as it launches the opponent high into the air allowing you to get a full corner carry combo, fairly large hitbox and overall a great starter.
On hit you can confirm it into Dauro (623P) > 5K
and from here you can choose to do either your Erarlumo Rekkas (214P x3)
or c.S > 6HS > 236HS > 236S if you are close enough to the corner for a wallbreak.
(or even both if you spend RC after Erarlumo to combo into c.S > 6HS)
Air to Air
While your Anti-Airs are fairly decent sometimes you need to get your hands dirty and challenge their jumps with your own air buttons, luckily for you Ram has amazing Air to Air options that if you know how to use them properly you can scare your enemies into not jumping and while there are more advanced techniques you can use to get the most out of Air combat and even combos we are going to focus on the basic stuff that will bring them back to the ground for this guide.
Very fast, deceptively large hitbox, just mash this bad boy if they get close enough and you will win most close range Air to Airs, seriously this button is good.
We already talked about this one, its a Warcrime that this button exists in the first place, if they are not close enough to you for the other options use this, and if you get a Counter Hit depending on the distance you can land into c.S for a full combo, if not then we will get to what you can do in a second.
Your go to gattling after j.S if you are high enough from the ground and close enough to your oponent to hit this, this has high pushback however so be ready to imput the next move after you press this.
Multi Hitting Overhead, despite what the animation might tell you this does not have a hitbox behind Ram, however it has one above Ram so its very useful to hit oponents that are slightly above you and depending on the height you get the hit in you can combo it into a grounded 5K for a full corner carry combo.
You got an air hit, congratulations but your enemy will recover if you dont do something about it and thats no good, well Ram has an answer for that too, if you dont trust yourself enough that you can land and get a combo then heres the move for you:
After confirming your hits you want to imput this move as it will give you a hard knockdown and its pretty easy to confirm due to its long range, and you might think “Wow this move looks kinda good, shouldnt i use it instead of all those other air options?” and the answer is no, because you see, this move hits 2 times and in Strive we have a little funky thing called Landing Recovery, whiff your second hit in the air and you just opened yourself to a free punish after you land since this move keeps you in the air for a bit, although it can be used for some really advanced tech with jump cancels and BRCs i wouldnt recommend throwing this move out all the time, so use it to confirm a hard knockdown after an air hit.
Corner
Hoo boy now for the fun stuff, congratulations, you got them stuck in the corner as we wanted, now its time to go ham on your enemy till we win the match but first and foremost we have to stablish something, the main way you will keep your corner pressure is Bajoneto (236S – 236HS) since it explodes after a second if it is used in the corner, however this move is not completely foul proof, if your opponent blocks it they can evade the explosion by jumping out of the corner or dashing through before the sword explodes.
So what do we do in this case? Well, we have to condition the opponent to stay in the damn corner, and both f.S and j.S are great for this
If they try to dash out keep them in with a f.S
If they try to jump out challenge the jump with a j.S or your other Air to Air moves depending on how close they are to you, but usually you want to keep your distance as they can challenge your Air to Air with an Air Grab.
This is basically a Rock Paper Scissors situation, play it right and you can force them to do very hasty choices that will most likely get them punished for it, be also very mindfull of their meter, if they have a super reversal you are going to take a lot of damage during your corner pressure as it is not gapless without the use of meter, if you see your opponent likes to use high risk moves as such you need to be ready to bait it out by blocking during your gaps and punishing them after they do such moves, condition them to respect your pressure even if its not gapless, make them scared of you.
Ok, so your opponent respects your pressure and most likely wont try anything hasty, so you are free to go ham now, time to set up some High – Low – Grab mixups then and the moves that will allow us to do so will be our only jump cancellable moves: 5K and c.S
This moves will allow us to retain pressure, get close enough to pick our swords back up and force the opponent to block really cursed stuff, since this part its a bit hard to explain on text I made a small video to showcase some of the pressure you can do.
These are just some very basic examples of the type of pressure you can do without spending meter, as you can see Ram can go with multiple mixups in the corner making her a very scary character to deal with in that situation specially if she gets the right hits to start a full combo and break the corner.
Basic Combos
To not make this guide longer than it has to be here are some very basic combos that you can do if you get the right starter
NOTE: Dauro (612P) Juggle combos only work when the starter is NOT 2K for some reason even I dont understand, so either start them from c.S / 5K, the sweeps directly (2D / 2HS) or a command normal like 6HS
Not a lot of damage but its better than no damage.
NOTATIONS:
- 2K > 2D > 623P / 236P
The starter can be replaced with 5K > 2D, very decent damage and corner carry.
NOTATIONS:
- c.S > 2HS or 5K > 2D > 623P > 5K > 214P x3
- c.S > 2HS or 5K > 2D > 623P > 5K/2K > 6HS > 236HS > 236S
A meterless Corner combo starting from c.S in case you messed up and pressed f.S so you can still salvage the combo without spending meter, get a wallbreak and deal some good damage.
NOTATIONS:
- c.S > f.S > HS > 236HS > Dash > 5K > c.S > f.S > HS
For when you have meter and want to take them to the corner
NOTATIONS:
- f.S > HS > Drift RC > Dash > c.S > 6HS > 236HS > Dash > 5KK > 214HS
A corner carry combo that works with c.S > 2HS as a starter too, after the explosion of 236HS you can end it however you want with 236S – 214HS or even 236236S if you have the meter to spare and want to kill the opponent
NOTATIONS:
- c.S > 2HS or 5K > 2D > 623P > 5K > 214P x3 > Drift RC > c.S > 6HS > 236HS > 236S/214HS/236236S
You are going to get this one as a Counter Hit, a lot, so be prepared to delay acordingly because the Counter Hit cut in really messes up the timing, practice it in training mode.
NOTATIONS:
- 6HS > 623P > 5K > 214P x3 > Drift RC > c.S > 6HS > 236HS/236236S
Ending
And thats pretty much the very basics on how to play Ramlethal, this is of course just the surface of what she can do, trust me she has some really nasty mixups that you can do with BRC midscreen, some really nice frametraps to punish hasty opponents and more stuff but thats for another guide in the future.
If you are interested in more Ramlethal stuff i cannot recommend enough the Dustloop Wiki, not only they saved me a bunch of time having all the images of every move thats on this guide but also provide stuff like Hitbox Data, Frame Data, and a lot more, please check it out if you didnt know it existed.
DUSTLOOP WIKI [www.dustloop.com]
Also huge thanks to Bachiru, a fellow Ramlethal main who spends most of his time labbing some of the insane stuff this character can do, check his channel, you wont be dissapointed.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtnWN-X2W93mKGE5m14YRYw
And without further due, thanks a lot for reading my guide, now you can tell all your friends that you have achieved Ramlethal Gaming, now go forth and beat some people to death with your f.S