[CT] Bang vs Ragna

[10stars]

This matchup was originally a nightmare for me, after playing for awhile and learning how Ragna works, it's no longer scary.

The opener

Ragna is scared of pretty much everyone, he's a glass cannon and isn't the powerhouse everyone thought he was cracked up to be. What this means for Bang? Even though Ragna can guess right and rush Bang off the start, he's going to back up and find a way to get in or to counter whatever Bang is going to do.

For the opener AVOID iading in, if Ragnas looking for it and doesn't jump, you're going to catch a 6a on reaction into a combo. I personally like dash 5a or dash 5b, anything that can lead into safe pressure without spending nails. As always, drive nails are the best opener you can go with, but save them, you may need them to threaten Ragna a little more later.

Since the IAD is very obvious for a Ragna to 6a, if you want to jump with something a little safer, deep dash into Ragna, jump over him. With forward momentum use j.a as soon as you jump, and then j.4c on crossup.

If the Ragna you're fighting is rushing you off the start, then you can move onto the "On the defensive" section.

I tend to open by blocking and seeing what the Ragna is going to do. If he appears defensive, the next round dash > 5a > 5b > 2b and start your pressure off the start.

Bang oki

Ragna is a threat on wakeup with his dp. Even though you can bait it with Bangs 2d, sometimes it will clash with Ragnas dp, and then he can just j.c and hit you. A teleporting is nice against it if you do get the 2d to block a hit of the dp, but teleporting late can cause a whiff, and then you're back at neutral with Ragna. You won't be seeing any Ragnas waking up with carnage scissors because the move sucks, you'll instead see dp > rc > dash. In the event that this happens and you 2d, make sure you have your throw break buffered so you don't take a counter throw.

Since Ragna has such low health, if a Ragna player thinks he can react to something on wakeup with his dp, he's most likely going to do so to avoid the pressure that follows, try whiffing 2a during quick recovery then blocking, at first you should see some dps thrown at it, after awhile they see it and go back to being scared, leaving more openings for mixups without the threat of a dp.

Besides that, once Ragnas in pressure, he's forced to block alot, and since he cant low profile over 5a, it's good in strings on wakeup. Ragna has three options, jump out of pressure during gaps, dp, or block.

If you leave a gap in your pressure to recover without wasting drive nails or jump canceling, try not to make a pattern of re entering with 2a, Ragnas 6d will beat it out and you'll take a nice crouching combo, which leads to a nice chunk of your health bar missing.

6b is not a really safe option here because of his dp, but it's still there and should only be used sparingly anyway.

On the defensive

Bang has a decent amount of options here. During Ragnas pressure he's going to want to jump cancel anything he can and re enter instead of using 214a or any of his drives that leave him with downtime. Instant block any of his slower moves such as 5c 2c and any of his drives. After instant blocking most of Ragnas drive moves, you can 6d guard point and A teleport to turn the pressure around.

Watching for his overhead is key, if you see it and can react in the startup frames, 2d will guard point it, however there are a handful of options that Ragna has if he sees your 2d block his 6b:

Ragna can either do nothing, and let the 2d hit him.

Ragna can 5c afterwards, which the guard point will still work against, then get hit by the 2d.

Ragna can 3c after the 6b, which beats out the 2d.

Ragna can rapid cancel and block.

For option #1, if Ragna just lets it hit him, the Ragna doesn't have much experience against Bangs guard points, or he tried to let his 6b recover so he could block.

For option #2 If he uses 5c and you do NOT teleport, you're guaranteed the hit. However, if you A teleported when he used his overhead, his 5c pushes his hitbox out of range of the 2d, so it will whiff.

For option #3 If he used 3c, then he saw your guard point, reacted to it, and tried to beat 2d out with a low. If you didn't teleport, you're getting hit by it and taking a 22c combo. Using A teleport here gets mixed results from my experience at least, if they had forward momentum on the 6b then the 2d will whiff if you teleport and they go for 3c. If they didn't sometimes you'll get a counter hit. Test around for yourself and see how it works in matches for you.

For option #4 If he decided to RC his 6b, if he's forced to block the 2d, then jump cancel it and start pressure, 9jc > j.4c crossup is decent after this situation happens. If your 2d whiffs after his RC, you're going to take a handful of damage. High risk, moderate reward in the Bang world.

If the Ragna you're fighting is using 214a or any moves like that, punish with 5a/5b. Be warned that if your timing for punishing 214a is slightly off, and the Ragna dps, you're going to eat it. Sometimes you can just assume they're going to dp and punish that instead. However I advise just properly punishing the 214a. Look for death spikes and stuff, they're slow and you shouldn't be caught in situations where you're forced to block them if you're instant blocking.

Drives

All drives in this fight are equally important, knowing which ones to use and when is reliant on what the Ragna player is going to do after you guard point something. Experience will help you with this, and reading peoples playstyles as well.

Any information? Feel free to post.

[solidshake]

just a couple of fun and simple things for dealing with telegraphed pressure. probably not useful for really competent ragna. - if ragna likes to DC 2nd hit of 5d to continue pressure, bang's 5d should fit right in time for autoguarding the next string. i imagine if they wise up and try to DC into throw, you can command throw or do the anti-throw buffer trick - probably obvious, but ragna's j.C falls terrible victim to 2d. i'm mentioning it because you don't really need to be psychic for it to connect, and because so many ragnas do this assuming it's safe. may need to A teleport if they j.C at max range. easy and excellent payoff for this fight.

[AtTheGates]

if you play good ragnas, they will zone the hell out of you with 5B. get used to ragna's 5B hitbox (it's the long kick). even from far away, if you whiff any drives, chances are, you will eat a 5B, so be really careful with wakeup drives and such. also, ragna's 5B at match begin will hit you out of TK drive shuris + counter hit, but i am not 100% sure, since this situation only happened once, would have to test some more.

[Reioumu]

Airdashing forward in when the game is neutral is a dumb idea since Ragna can just space you as ATG says. Try to bait stuff with just super jumps and double jumps. block in the air most of the time to bait attacks and mix in a jD every once in awhile. a CH jD leads to a triple super crash combo as shown in the Pink Bang video CHjD \/ 2b 623b d 2b 623b 6c 623b \/ 2c 9jump or IAD to Oki and continue the pressure. With two combos Daioucho took out about 75% of Ragna's health. 2nd combo being 2a 5b 2b 6c jD 2369C \/ d. 6c j.D \/ 5c 623b -> oki

[10stars]

Airdashing forward in when the game is neutral is a dumb idea since Ragna can just space you as ATG says. Try to bait stuff with just super jumps and double jumps. block in the air most of the time to bait attacks and mix in a jD every once in awhile. a CH jD leads to a triple super crash combo as shown in the Pink Bang video

CHjD \/ 2b 623b d 2b 623b 6c 623b \/ 2c 9jump or IAD to Oki and continue the pressure.

With two combos Daioucho took out about 75% of Ragna's health.

2nd combo being 2a 5b 2b 6c jD 2369C \/ d. 6c j.D \/ 5c 623b -> oki

I don't really advise jumping in at Ragna unless he's scared in the first place, 6a is too strong.

[Reioumu]

I don't really advise jumping in at Ragna unless he's scared in the first place, 6a is too strong.

True, 6a is amazing. Ground game is definitely the best idea in the first place. But dp baiting is so much fun lol. Like sometimes after knocking them down I start a 9 jump with barrier then end with j.4C. Obviously I can hit them on reaction if they use dp lol.

Though yeah, ground game is definitely very strong against Ragna.

[solidshake]

if you play good ragnas, they will zone the hell out of you with 5B.

i was screwing around with this last night in training and it looks like 3C -could- go under it. only problem is you have to be more than outside 5B's range since the startup of 3C extends your hitbox a bit. all in all, might help fish for knockdown once or twice.

[10stars]

i was screwing around with this last night in training and it looks like 3C -could- go under it. only problem is you have to be more than outside 5B's range since the startup of 3C extends your hitbox a bit. all in all, might help fish for knockdown once or twice.

yeah, but ragnas shouldn't be throwing 5b outside of 5bs range, lol. If you're out of 5bs range in the first place and they throw it, you can run in and punish it with 5a.

[Reioumu]

An idea. If you're ever in the corner against Ragna, try to counter assault. Ragna's stupid safe offense crap is annoying and the corner is a bad place for you to be in. I've recently started using counter assaults more often, and Bang's definitely helps get the enemy off your ass. ESPECIALLY RAGNA

[SSMugen]

I dunno about those counter assaults....I don't see what makes them so better as to waste a valuable 50% meter for bang where he can just IB -> 5D (with an advanced throw break thrown in just in case) to get out of the corner. That's just me though there could be something I'm missing.

[Prototype909]

An idea. If you're ever in the corner against Ragna, try to counter assault. Ragna's stupid safe offense crap is annoying and the corner is a bad place for you to be in. I've recently started using counter assaults more often, and Bang's definitely helps get the enemy off your ass. ESPECIALLY RAGNA

lol @ Ragna having super safe offense. Compared to the majority of the cast Ragna's rushdown sucks ass.

[WUT]

When your aa is horrible then anyone who can jump cancel their pressure is a pain. However, if you're in the corner a simple barrier guard then jump works against ragna's offense most of the time. His means of restarting pressure once he's pushed out is either obvious or risky.

[DeadCellSpawn]

Ragna's offense can be alot for Bang to handle. You might be able to squeeze a counter out but a good Ragna will just wait and punish. The main problem for Bang is Ragna's reversals. His pokes are short and has trouble punishing Ragna without getting hit by a reversal or hit into another block string.

[Black ninja]

I thought the only way to handle ragna was to wait for chance to counter and crossup.

[The_Grither_]

Wow that 2a bait for ragnas dp on wake up is really working for me. Thanks tenstars...that was my main problem pressuring him cuz 2d keeps getting punish by throws

[rei-Scarred]

You can autoguard 6A with j.D. Sometimes it seems impossible, but I've gotten really good at it. I hit OutlawAssassin with j.D on his 6A a lot lol. Massive damage =].

[kilabeep3]

Counter assaults work, but highly risky. What I do is I block and try to IB something and parry or use alpha counters if I have 50 heat. But seriously the only thing you can do is stay on the defense until you can punish. if you can barrier up and try to find a way to jump out to safetey and then you can apply pressure from there. I've had some psychic daifunkas on ragnas when I see that dash punch coming while in their blockstring.

[faultydefense]

something silly I saw yesterday...happened twice in the same round, wasn't me but watching a bang v ragna (in CS btw) ragna did a blockstring 5B > 5C > 5D > 214A, the bang was mashing and did 5A after ragna did 5D and it beat out hells fang