OneMoreQuestion said:
HUUUGE noob here, I have an embarrassing question for y'all. My cousin is owning me with Noel (I'm using Ragna) and I'm basically finished once he does his drive moves and corners me... Is there any way to break free from those (seemingly) endless combos? I did that burst thing with a 4 face buttons to push him off but it seems to only work once a round. Thanks...
Find out what makes him start swinging: If you dash up to him, does he start mashing D? What happens if you jump towards him? This is important, you can't really win without that knowledge. Once you figure that out, get him to start attacking, but make sure you're out of his range when you do so that his attacks whiff (you don't want to be blocking). Then, just wait for him to stop (the safest place to do this is in the air -- Noel has a free crossup, a decent overhead and a command grab... thing while in drive). Once he does, go to town. Noel's drive moves have a major caveat: If you whiff with them, you must eventually stop attacking, and the second you do, you have a ton of recovery, during which you are free to get hit. The reason that a lot of players struggle with Noel early on (and even later on) is that almost all of her drive moves have some kind of invulnerability, which basically means your moves will go right through her. It is definitely possible to punish her moves while she's doing them, but it is far easier and far safer just to wait for her to stop and then fuck her up afterwards. Note that if he starts his pressure with non-D moves (like he should), things are quite a bit more difficult to deal with from this approach.
The other thing that you should pay attention to in this matchup is that you outrange her by quite a bit. Don't run up to her: make her get to you so that all you have to do to stop her from approaching is press the drive button (seriously, Ragna's 5D will catch everything on the ground except optic barrel for obvious reasons if you time it right). If she starts to get frustrated and begins using drives to get in, dash backwards (IAD if you can) and wait for her to stop. You have an even larger range advantage in the air; many Noel players make this up by jabbing people out of their air-to-air attacks, so make sure you give yourself more than enough distance, and if you think your opponent is going to jump, input your attack super early after getting of the ground.
You should also be aware of your reversal, if you're not already. If you are in the corner, knocked down, and the opponent winds up for an attack, input 623C. It is the best DP in the game and beats basically every meaty clean. You can do this basically any time you think that your opponent is going to attack you and you are not in blockstun (ie currently blocking an attack). Don't do this every time, however, as if your opponent is predicting it you will be very, very hurt.
You should also consider the possibility that there is a large skill difference between you and the Noel player and that maybe you just need to spend some time in training mode. Having not seen you play, I can't really judge.
EDIT: Oh, also, if you're blocking and you don't like the situation you're in (say, you're in the corner) and you have 50 heat, input 6+AB. It will kick him off of you and give you space.
