Raining Blood - 5 Star Guide

*Someone Please Move This To User-Submitted Guides. Thanks*


Well... After many battles with Mosh 1 and 226k scores, I finally did the impossible! I 5 Starred Raining Blood. Now, I will pass down my secrets to the next generation of people older than me to rather pass, (considering if you're here for you saw raining blood, and you couldn't pass it overall and figured "What the heck? Maybe he can have some tips...) or to Five Star it.

Introduction

Although it is completely my opinion, I will say that this is by far the most difficult 5* in Expert Career for GH3. This isn’t Psychobilly Freakout - there isn’t one spot for you to learn that will suddenly get you extremely close to a 5*. As well, this isn’t Misirlou—it doesn’t take a huge period of time to get somewhat consistent with a single skill (tremolo picking in this case). Instead, Raining Blood is a mixture of countless songs from GH’s history, and that’s what makes it hard: you need to be able to be consistent in several spots, all of which ranges from somewhat difficult to ass-raping hard.

My goal with this guide is like any other 5* guide you see on Sythe; a walkthrough with the intention of helping you 5*, if not, get closer to 5*ing this beast of a chart. However, I’ll throw in a disclaimer: reading this will not instantly Purify your fingers, allowing you to instantly 5* this song. Raining Blood is rough, and you will need to slowly inch your way to the 5* by getting better at the many skills required.

Raining Blood in a Nut Shell

If I was in a room with Hitler, Stalin, and the Raining Blood note chart, and I had a gun with 2 bullets, I would shoot the Raining Blood note chart twice. This chart incorporates so much pain into 5 different colored circles that it is truly amazing. Luckily though, it isn’t that bad. The first minute or so of the song goes by pretty smoothly, making you wonder why the hell Raining Blood is in tier 8.

Then Mosh 1 happens. You suddenly feel violated like a 14-year-old Japanese girl on a commuter train heading to Tokyo. Eventually, when you pass this section (and that’s if you pass it), you are thrown into a funky strumming riff similar to Beast and the Harlot’s verse riff.

Following this, you encounter one of the most important sections of the song, as this is where you will be getting the majority of your points to propel you to the 5*. After the nice 3-note-chords are over (bless Neversoft, they charted 3-note-chords strategically to help us 5* this crap), the chart will look a lot like what you saw near the beginning of the song.

Now commence lots of strummed notes, followed by lots of strummed chords. Before I talk about the final portion of this track, let’s do an activity! Get an old-fashioned chalkboard, and grow out your fingernails for 2 weeks. Once you have these materials, pound your nails into the board and pull your hand down against it, scratching it like hell. Lastly, turn the sound you just created into a note chart. That, my friends, is the final portion of the song: Flood! Chances are, you won’t be getting many points from it, so just worry about not failing there (which doesn’t take much effort).

Practice Mode is made of Win

And don’t you forget that. Now, I am not one of those guys looking for a post reading:

Practice mode is actually useful. Perhaps, at slower speeds, you will never be able to (readily) adapt to full speed, but the fact that you can simply practice on full speed makes it completely worth it. Use practice mode for this song, because you will need to learn to combo quite a few sections, and some may be tricky. As for what parts to practice, I’ll go in depth on that in the coming individual sections later in this guide.

Star Power (And So Can You!)

Star Power = 5* for this song. Hell, Star Power = 5* for any song. A real basic equation, you don’t need to be some fancy-pants-look-at-me-I-have-a-pocket-protector math professor to understand it. However, for the average person attempting to 5* this, and even for those who can 5* it frequently, there will be but only one or two main places to activate Star Power throughout the entire song. The chart of this is definitely unrelenting when it comes to Star Power Phrases, as there are only 7. In order, phrases 1, 2, and 5 are all pretty easy to get. However, phrases 3, 4, 6, and 7 all take some sort of skill or consistency to hit right.

As for the actual path, we will be activating with the path of 2-3 (the preferred path, where you activate in Hard Rain’s triplets, and in Mosh 2’s 3-note chords).

The section I’m talking about in Hard Rain looks something like this:

G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G
G R Y B O B Y R G G G

The section I'm talking about in Mosh 2 looks something like this:

RBO RBO RBO RBO RBO RBO RBO RBO RBO RBO RBO RBO G G

Now, it doesn’t really matter how much star power you have, but just be sure you are able to activate at some point in Mosh 2. Although 2-3 is the preferred path, you can do this with just an activation of 4 or 3 in Mosh 2 alone. For example, if you were only able to get 3 phrases throughout the entire song, and you are coming into the 5th phrase during Mosh 2, then get that full bar of SP, then activate during the next set of 3-note-chords. This should all basically be logical: get as much star power as you can get, and then activate during the 3-note-chord section that you can hit! POINTS!!! OM NOM NOM NOM!

After the activation in Mosh 2, 2 Star Power Phrases remain, and if you can somehow get both, then the location for the final activation is entirely up to you. Getting the last 2 phrases is far trickier compared to the other 5, so chances are, you will not get them. However, if you do, then use your logic with the last activation: activate it in a spot that you can hit or an area that will maximize your points. For most people, I would recommend activating at the slower BO trill that occurs about 20 seconds into Flood! Just remember, you do not need to get the final 2 phrases: the path of 2-3 is fine. In fact, many paths are fine, including 4-S1 and even just 3.

[Thanks to debr5836 and JCirri for blank charts]
The preferred path: 2-3

Now, the path of 2-3 is a very selective one, assuming that you will probably make a mistake on the 6th or 7th SP phrase. If in any case you can hit all of the first 6 phrases and perform well in Hard Rain and the Chorus, aloneinthedark has presented me with a great alternate path which I have mapped out here: aloneinthedark's path.

As well, I have also mapped out what I call the “general path,” it is as simple as you can get without sacrificing too much. In fact this is the actual path that I used when I first got Guitar Hero 3, shooting me up to the 5*. It has been mentioned earlier in this guide several times, and in the original version of this guide, it was my preferred path: 4-S1. It assumes you get all of the first 4 SP phrases, but it is also alright if you only get 3 of the first 4, and then get the 5th; the sole purpose of this path is to allow you to have a nice, long activation during Mosh 2, which will hopefully net you a ton of points. If you are only able to get 3 of the first 5 phrases, then activate on the 3rd set of 3-note-chords. This will allow you to get 2 sets of 3-note-chords under SP, which is still damn good: The General Path

And just because we all love star power paths and discussions, f4phantom2500 has provided me another alternate path: 4-2-ES1. This one requires a difference skill compared to the others: a good performance of Verse, but that really isn’t too much to ask for: f4phantom2500’s path.

Requested by greystreetave127, I have made another path that is actually a slight modification of f4phantom2500's original path as seen above. This path is great if you are good at the Verse and Mosh 2, but completely suck at the Chorus: Variant of f4phantom2500's path (4-2-S1)

I have done the math for these paths and this is how it looks:

The general path of 4-S1 will net you 116 notes under SP
aloneinthedark's 2-4-ES1 will net you 172 notes under SP
f4phantom2005’s 4-2-ES1 will net you 179 notes under SP (definitely use this if you can combo the Verse consistently)
The modified version of f4phantom's path, 4-2-S1, will net you 179 notes under SP (use this over the original version if you suck at the Chorus)
My preferred path of 2-3 will net you 144 notes under SP (this does not take into account whether you get the final 2 phrases)

Each of these said paths take into account several different skill sets: Hard Rain, Verse, Mosh 2, and Chorus. These are the prime locations for standard SP paths (unless you activate 3 in Mosh 1, which I believe is the primary first activation for an FC) in Raining Blood, and likewise, you should try to be proficient in these sections. If any of them trouble you, hopefully my individual walkthroughs below on each part of the song can help you attain the necessary skill to combo them. If you are still struggling, then simply change the SP path to suit what you can and cannot do. Hopefully, one of the above paths will bring you much closer to the 5*.

The Calm

There is absolutely no reason why you should need help with this section. But as a reminder, you should always FC this part of the song, and hold every sustain for dear life, snatching every possible tick you can. Every point counts.

Drizzle 1

This is another section that you should have no problem on. If in any case you do, you should revise your method of hitting this, as this section is very important: Drizzle 1 contains an SP phrase, and Drizzle 2, which occurs much later in the song, is an exact replica of Drizzle 1.

As for me, I start off in position 1 (GRYB), hit the greens, and once the red note comes, I immediately slide my index finger onto the red fret and then stay in position 2 (RYBO) until the next greens come.


1 1 1 1 3 4 3 1 3 2 1 3 2

Chances are, you already have your own method of hitting this. Point is, if it works, stick to it.

Hard Rain

Now we’re warming up! Gallops. Some of you hate them and some of you love them. As for myself, I absolutely LOVE gallops, no matter what speed they are (Raining Blood or Barracuda). I can almost always hit them right, and especially in Raining Blood’s case, I can always gallop quickly enough to hit them all. With this little intro, there are two ways for you to combo the gallops:

1) Normal galloping that involves alt-strumming, taking gaps into account. You can do this through many techniques, but generally, I like to play gallops as UDU DUD UDU DUD etc. (U = up-strum, D = down-strum). DUD DUD DUD and UDU UDU UDU are two other possibilities.
111 111 111 111 111 111

2) Alt-strum through all of the gallops, paying no attention to the gaps between them at all.
111111111111111111111


It turns out, however, that over the brief life that this guide has had, I have picked up the skill to gallop. Because of this, I now use the first method (UDU DUD UDU) to hit Hard Rain. It works fine for me, but if you have trouble with gallops, then method 2 works perfectly fine as well.

For the first month that I played Raining Blood, I would always alt-strum through this crap, and I never felt guilty at all for it, because I could consistently FC Hard Rain and that’s all that mattered. Method 2 is surprisingly consistent, and because of that, there is no reason to shun the idea if these quick gallops are causing you any trouble whatsoever.

This, however, is all based on your skill or preference. You might prefer to do normal gallops, and if that’s the case, make sure you can FC this part because this is one of the sections that is very costly to your 5*. If you are a gallop maestro, skip on over to the next section. However, if I tickled your fancy with my cheap alt-strumming lameness of Method 2, read on.

Basically, alt-strumming through gallops is a very delicate technique. You will need to find a speed that’s quick enough to register all the notes, but slow enough to make sure you do not over-strum. Some may find this hard, but I have a tip for this. When alt-strumming the gallops, pay close attention to your green fret: if you ever see notes going past your fret (in other words, closer to you), speed up a bit. If you do not see notes going past your fret, and you are not over-strumming at all or breaking combo, then that is the right speed. It is easy to improvise once you have done it once, so if you need practice, go into practice mode and try to figure out how to hit these gallops.

Unfortunately, Hard Rain has a second part that occurs in between all of those gallops (although, it is pretty easy): a strummed scale going from to , and back to . I use the same fingering here as I do for Drizzle 1:


1 1 2 3 4 3 2 1 111

As for the transitions from the gallops to the scale, it isn’t that bad at all. If you start the alt-strumming/galloping on an up-strum, then you will always end on a down-strum right before the green note that commences the scale. In other words, the transitions are quite fluid.

Mosh 1

If a note chart could somehow send across a message from Neversoft saying

it would look a lot like Raining Blood’s Mosh 1. Honestly, I have made many analogies and phrases about Mosh 1 so far in this guide, yet it doesn’t do the damn thing justice. Ah, what the hell, I’ll do another one!

I believe it was Jesus who once said:

Well said Jesus, well said.

Mosh 1 is difficult to combo, full of HOPO quad scales that would make Psychobilly Freakout verse 2, Hangar 18 Solo 1b, and Free Bird Solo J quiver in fear. These scales are fast, and even worse, they keep pounding on you for quite a while, all of which to make sure you will view life with a newfound respect.

Take note: you cannot use star power in order to survive this. Using star power here, unless you can FC it (and if you can, then you probably should have had this 5* a while ago), is utterly meaningless. However, you still want to combo it, and as much of it as you can.

As for the beginning of Mosh 1, I highly recommend learning how to combo the SP phrase (SP Phrase 3). Although you do not essentially need it to 5* Raining Blood, it always makes you feel better knowing that you have another SP phrase under your belt, and after all, we are aiming for the activation path of 2-3. As for learning how to combo the first quads…

ZOOM ZOOOOOOM ZOOMZOOOM ZOOOOOM. That’s what you want your fingers to do, reenact some lame Mazda commercial. The scales are fast, and generally, if you ever give way and slow down just a tiny bit, you will break combo and then it all goes to hell fast because it is hard to restart that combo. From what I know, there are two main ways to hitting scales like these:

1) Have your hand in position 1 for the BYRG scales, and position 2 for the OBYR scales, shifting hand positions where necessary.


4321 *move hand down* 4321

2) Have your hand in position 2 the entire time, and when BYRG scales come, use the fingering 3211. As for keeping the speed without shifting hand positions, this will require you to “brush” your index against the green, that way it registers.


4321 3211

I use method 2 here, as I am more use to it than method 1, but use what works best for you (practice mode will help determine this if you can’t by yourself). This just comes down to practice and fingering the scales really fast. If by any chance you are fingering the scales too fast, then I both envy you and think… well, that you should slow down.

Occasionally, there will also be some strummed notes between the HOPOs, but there really is no technique for this, as they are all separated pretty well and easy to hit. The only problem here is HOPOing from those strummed notes to keep the combo going.



Now, while we’re on the subject of strumming, samling has his own advice on Mosh 1: strum only what you need to. That is, do not strum the beginning of every quad. However, if it works for you, then be my guest and continue to do it. Nonetheless, strumming every quad could ruin your combo (due to strumming having a tighter timing window than HOPOs) or even cause some funky eye-hand coordination issues, making you lose focus on what the hell you are doing. Just remember, this is more of a warning to heed rather than an absolute. You might be able to strum the first note of every descending quad and remain unscathed from Mosh 1, and if that's the case, then more power to you.

There’s really not much more I can say about Mosh 1 in terms of helping you to combo it. On some good runs, I can combo a lot of it, while on bad runs, I can only combo the SP phrase in the beginning (and sometimes I even miss that). The 5* is in no way fully dependent on your performance of Mosh 1, especially if you shine in other areas, such as the Verse and Chorus.

Speaking of the Verse…

Verse

Although I haven’t really heard that many people complain about this section, I will say that it’s overrated in terms of difficulty just for the hell of it because it isn’t hard at all. FCing the entire section is a little bit difficult, but comboing the bits and pieces are quite simple.

The Verse consists of two alternating riffs: each one has 6 green notes (there is a gap between the first and second), and then a series of chords, either or . I will break this riff into two pieces (obviously), the green section and the chord section.

The Full Riff:
1 11111 23 23 45 1 11111 23 23 45 34

For the green section, I use the same method that I used to do for the gallops located in Hard Rain: Method 2, completely ignore the gap. Thus, I treat:
1 11111

as
1111111
I alt-strum this chain of 6 notes, and conveniently, it will be an up-strum for the first green, and down for the last green. I am yet to ever lose combo due to that gap using this technique. Just remember, these things are practically small tremolos, so alt-strum moderately fast. After one or two repeats, you should be able to improvise the right speed. You do not need to alter your speed within the gap (i.e. alt strum slower) to exploit the timing window. If in any case you over-strum, then you are strumming way too fast.

As for the chord sections, there are once again, two ways to do this. For the , you can either stay in position 1, or you can enter position 2 if it allows more comfort. Similarly, for the chords, you can either stay in position 1 and stretch for the chord, or you can switch to position 2 for its entirety. Take it into practice and see what you like most, as comfortability and the speed at which you can shift your hand will definitely determine how you take this section on.

Now, whether you use the fingering 12 34 23 or 23 34 34 (or whatever you improvised) to hit the , it is important to note that there is a larger gap between these chords and the next tremolo (which restarts the verse repetition), compared to the gap between . In other words, this will allow you to better shift your hand during that final chord sequence, as you have more time to get back to the green fret in order to continue the verse repetition.

In other words:
the gap is small
the gap is larger. This is partly due to there only being 3 chords, versus 4 chords in the other segment.


Because of the rather simple nature of this section, Verse is important to the 5*. It is relatively easy to combo, and it also has an SP phrase within it (SP Phrase 4), so it is best if you take the time to learn to combo it consistently.

Mosh 2

Unlike Mosh 1, Mosh 2 actually doesn’t kill babies. In fact, Mosh 2 makes 5*s happen. Joy! Mosh 2 contains 3 main sections: something similar to Drizzle, a HOPO chain, and a series of 3-note-chords.

The part similar to Drizzle really needs no explanation at all, as it has already been covered several times before in this guide. Not to mention, it is easy as well, so I really don’t see why I need to explain this in the first place.

My fingering would be:
*HOPO chain*
1 1 1 11 1 1 1 2 4 3

It might be important, however, if I send a warning: the last section of this Drizzle-esque chart is a known bastard in terms of breaking combos. Make sure that you are able to catch and correctly finger the . It may feel a little odd to fret, and this is more than likely why many people miss it. Try your best not to.

The HOPO chain starts with a strummed yellow, and then makes a zigzag, charted as . For this, you can once again choose how to do it based on your comfortability. You may want to stay in position 1 for it, or use position 2 if you are having what I call “Carry Me Home” syndrome (see CMH’s lame verse riff on Hard mode: ). However, seeing that most people have unresponsive or generally lame pinkies, it is probably best if you shift in position 2 to hit this. This zigzag is infamous for breaking combos, and that is the last thing you want to happen in Mosh 2.

Personally, I have no problem using my pinky, so I use the fingering:

34323

But seriously, you cannot miss this at all. If your pinky is made of loss, shift up to position 2 and use the fingering 23212 to hit the HOPO chain, then shift back down so you can hit the greens.

If you are still having problems with the little ziggy, perhaps altering how it looks in your mind can help you combo it. Aside for it being a simple ziggy, you can also imagine it in two different ways:

followed by a descending triplet and then a final

Or perhaps a trill followed by

The 3-note-chords section is what makes Mosh 2 so important. The song is basically handing you free points here, and because of that, you need to FC this section. Mosh 2 contains SP Phrase 5, and if you were able to get the previous 2 phrases, then go ahead and activate at the set of 3-note-chords directly after the 5th SP Phrase. Do not miss here.

Drizzle 2

Do not miss in Mosh 2. Whoops, this is a new section. Well, there is nothing really new here in Drizzle 2, as it is exactly the same as Drizzle 1. You know what? Do not miss here either. More free points.

Bridge

The first part of the Bridge is practically impossible to miss, unless you stare at your score while playing the chords.

11
22

Or if you want some fun, tap it and showoff to your friends!

11
11

However, the second part of the bridge can be pretty tricky to combo. In fact, I am really inconsistent on the Bridge; I can usually combo the SP Phrase, but after that, I tend to fall apart.

The technique here is to down-strum at a pretty fast pace (or alt-strum), while getting the fingerings correct (duh). Unfortunately, the strumming here isn’t what makes it hard. Being able to fret all of the correct notes and always fall back on the chord, not to mention, go through tricky note transitions dealing with that chord amongst all of the scales can really throw you off. The only real way to get better at this is to actually play the song a lot or go into practice mode and get an idea of what the pattern is, so then you can better anticipate the next note and allow your fingers to properly adjust. Personally, I stay in position 1 the whole time here and stretch to hit the oranges, but you may want to shift hand positions.

As for an alternate strategy, Lucifer2K7 suggests holding down throughout the entirety of the bridge. Because there are no chords in the Bridge that lack a fret, this might prove useful for you, as it eliminates some of the crazy fretting action.

Another tip that could come in handy (as suggested by samtheman) is to count the bridge's repetition from one to four. If you look at the structure of the bridge, there is always a GR chord followed three notes. In other words, you can count to yourself:


1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

The Bridge:


Chorus

Even though it’s practically the bridge but with all chords, it isn’t that difficult to hit. I am able to combo this section extremely well versus the bridge, and I find that the chorus is much more important anyway, as it can give a hell load of last-minute points for that 5* you want so badly.

However, the same strategies from the bridge apply here as well: you can use position 1 throughout and stretch for the chords, or swap hand positions in order to better hit the chords, or other chords for that matter. Also, because the notes do not alternate as often as in the bridge, there is generally less “crazy-fingering-action” (heh... that's what she said! ), but either way, you want to be able to hit this part, and preferably, FC it.

The Pattern:


Most likely, the best fingering will mainly use your dominant fingers. In other words, use the fingering 12 for all the GR chords (duh), and for any other chord, shift into position 2 and use the appropriate fingers.

Just remember: if you cannot hit this section, do not go crazy. This section is far from crucial in terms of getting the 5*, however, it can be if you suck elsewhere. The hardest part is getting the fingering down, so go into Practice Mode (remember, Practice Mode is Win!) to find a comfortable means of hitting it.

The Chorus is the last major section where you can score some good points, and since they are all chords, you do not really want to lose this opportunity and be forced to do well in the…

Flood!

Yup. Well, if you do bad in the Chorus, there is no need for you to have to do well in Flood!, I was simply saying that for the hell of it. Anyway...

Apparently, raining blood creates floods, and they sound a lot like scratching chalkboards and look like trills in note chart form. There isn’t much I can say about this part, similar to Mosh 1. The trills are incredibly fast, and chances are, you will not combo them, so simply concentrate on surviving and hitting as many notes as you can (alt-strum while fretting the trills if necessary). Personally, for the fast trills, I like to just go crazy with 2 appropriate fingers, alternating them back and forth as fast as I can while alt-strumming at a moderate speed. This hits most of the notes, and while I do not get a combo, I am at least able to receive every 50 point note that I can.

There’s only 3 parts of this section that are reasonably easy to combo: the tremolo at the beginning, a slow trill a little past the midway point, and the last few seconds of the song where everything is regular strummed notes, simple HOPOs, and sustains.

The tremolo can be pretty damn important, as it is the last major thing you have to propel yourself to the 5*. Although it is not required for you to combo, especially if you did well in previous sections, this tremolo isn’t really hard to hit; just alt-strum it. Then again, if you are extremely tired, then hopefully you did really awesome earlier in the song.

The screeching tremolo from hell... or a cloud of... blood (14.53 NPS):
you get the point.

As for the trill, it’s rather simple. You can easily hit it by holding down the blue fret and pushing the orange fret at the appropriate times.

Before and after the "easy" trill:
..

After the final crazy trill thing, you are home free. The rest of the song is just slow strummed notes and sustains, which leads into…

The Aftermath


The final note in the song (ridiculous how it got it’s own section, just forces me to write more) should not be missed at all. Chances are, if you were able to combo the easy ending of Flood!, you will hopefully have a 3x multiplier when you hit this 3-note-chord, meaning ticks. Lots and lots of ticks, and not the bad kind. This is where you stare at your score for the remainder of the song, wishing that the ticks could raise forever (or at least, until you get the 5*).

The Raining Blood 5* cut-off has been proven to be 227,212 thanks to the Xbox 360 Community. So basically, if your score is somewhere around this, hope for the very best, but prepare to find defeat. If in any case you do, don’t worry, the fact that you got a score this high means only good things for future runs. However, if you exceed the proof value above, then let me direct you to a video: Chariots Of Fire (Congrats Song)
Conclusion

Well, I honestly hope this guide gave you some sort of help. Whether small tips or a lot of insight, the goal of this guide was to cover every aspect there is to this song. If anything needs to be edited or added to this guide, post in this topic informing me or send a PM, whichever is more convenient for you. I want a strong Raining Blood 5* guide, and this will help be made possible by the additions that the community of ScoreHero will input and argue.

Nonetheless, good luck with Raining Blood, and hopefully this guide didn’t drag on or seem like a chore to read in any way, shape, or form. The El Jefe/Las Vegan will definitely feel awesome to have. Good luck and have Fun getting Ass-Fucked by Raining Blood!

*Partially Taken from bjwdestroyer off ScoreHero