[CS1] Arakune vs. Noel

[SOVIET AFRO]

Not sure what has changed much but strategies for this fight are Welcomed here

[CopperDabbit]

Not too much has changed. The biggest different is her 5D being incredibly useful anti-air against arakune's air pressure. Her 5D will go right through a dive-canceled j.b and punish for a full combo. She can also use it during gaps in block strings like 6A > 5D for a CH into big damage. The best thing I've found to do against her 5D is to cross-up with it, so if she's getting up off the ground and does a reversal 5D, she moves forward and you cross behind her. The timing is really difficult and you need to be a bit predictive, but it does work. Double jump to bait and then j.b as you're landing works fairly well, in addition.

[LunaKage]

Just a heads up, while Noel's 5D can go through your j.B, it needs exact timing, if Noel's so much as a frame or two off we eat a counter hit j.B. 5C beats Noel's 2D clean, and Noel's 2D will pass right over 2C. Be wary of being predictable with your jumps, because an air-grab from Noel will feed you a healthy 3+k haida loop.

[LordSpectreX]

How do her Chain Revolvers Blockstrings work? The black aura blocks a lot of my vision (quite bad sighted when it comes to colours), making it hard to tell what mixup she's going to do. Also, how many Chain Revolver moves can she do before having to stop?

[Skye]

How do her Chain Revolvers Blockstrings work? The black aura blocks a lot of my vision (quite bad sighted when it comes to colours), making it hard to tell what mixup she's going to do. Also, how many Chain Revolver moves can she do before having to stop?

IB backdash, watch as she makes an ass of herself.

Noel more than likely won't approach you, what with her lol 5D, set up zoning grounds, let Noel come to you.

[LunaKage]

How do her Chain Revolvers Blockstrings work? The black aura blocks a lot of my vision (quite bad sighted when it comes to colours), making it hard to tell what mixup she's going to do. Also, how many Chain Revolver moves can she do before having to stop?

She can do 5 moves and one finisher, just mash backdash and you'll get out, Chain Revolver sucks for blockstrings unless her opponents is an idiot.

[LordSpectreX]

Thanks, I'll do that when I see one. Haven't seen any Noels lately. Compared to CT anyway. But wasn't it less before? 4 and a finisher?

[LunaKage]

Thanks, I'll do that when I see one. Haven't seen any Noels lately. Compared to CT anyway. But wasn't it less before? 4 and a finisher?

no it was always 5, one starter, four follow ups, one finisher.

[LordSpectreX]

Anyone have any advice about the CS2 version of this matchup? I'm finding it nearly incredibly difficult. Moreso than any other character.

Backdash sucks so much now. Half the time I IB and use it, I end up getting hit anyway, so I don't bother with it. Her mixup still isn't scary, but because I'm so worried about getting hit by pretty much any move that all lead to 4K+ w/oki. Zoning is too risky cause her optic barrels can snipe bell bug attempts. And she can punish clouds easily by running in quickly. She has loads of tick grab setups, her airthrow grabs from behind her; and both lead to high damage. J.B trades with EVERYTHING. 6A, her drives. 6C. Even from an IAD. Mixup is pointless and risky cause she can just Drive through any mixup you attempt.

Even in Curse, it's a struggle. Her moves have invincibilty, so you have to be cautious going in. She's fast, meaning she can avoid lockdown for some time. Her Dead Angle practically destroys any curse pressure, and I have to go through the whole process of lockdown and mixup again. Then, if she gets a single hit in, she's wastes my whole curse.

I can't see this matchup from my experience being any less than 3.5-6.5. She outclasses Arakune in every aspect, even damage output. Her air to ground sucks, but you always have to be careful of J.D and Arakune has no real anti airs against any decent Noels.

[Abyss]

I don't think so, This match-up isn't so difficult for me.

If you've got the habit to backdash, then lose it: You can't backdash whenever you want, and against Noel it's only sometimes.

For baiting 6A, she have enough recovery to punish correctly if she whiff (not like Makoto...) ==> Any pressing > jump then double jump and you see what she do.

6C is dangerous, but if you show her that she should not whiff it, she'll think two time before using it.

For her drive, well I guess the best thing to do if you block it is backdash, then 2C (be careful about her 4D, wait a little before doing 2C, she might do 4D and then you punish (same for 2D). If you're not confident about 2C, then just use jD + 2D). You still has to be cautious for her invincibility, but it's okay if you don't get repetitive.

You can't do zoning correctly against her yeah, it's more wait and punish game.

During curse... Well, since she doesn't have shoryu you shouldn't have so much problem to press her. Don't do 3AA too much time and begin an advanced pressure as quick as possible.

A little advatage for Noel, but nothing really impossible I think.

Edited June 28, 2011 by Abyss

[LordSpectreX]

What parts of her drive are backdashable? I've tried IBing lots of different ones but I always seem to have little success. Especially since I'll end up eating 5K for my troubles. During Curse, I understand going into pressure quickly, but that's difficult when most setups rely on 3A>3A. Not to mention that they can Dead Angle the attack you used to get in anyway. Plus, if you don't use an attack, they'll be able to drive through the bug pressure. You have to keep up the pressure, but then they can just Dead Angle.

[Skye]

The Noel mod is out local Noel, he lacks a ton of confidence and has this self loathing complex, but he does shit right nonetheless, this match up is total ass.

It's hard to gauge the ups and downs here, Noel has too many anti-Arakune options to deal with, it's like fighting Litchi in CS1 without the staff everywhere and j.c[m] spam, fuck up once and you eat 4k minimum and corner oki, fuck up twice, you better have a burst or you're dead. You usually don't survive a third fuck up vs a good Noel.

6.5 - 3.5 Noel's favor

Arakune Offense

Not much to say here, Noel's 6a is good again, so you will have to settle for deep air approaches, nonetheless, Arakune is MUCH more comfortable on the offense, but you have to play cautious, you will have to stay on the look out for drive, namely 2d since it's Noel's choice of reversal in this match up, you can 5c it if you're not autopiloting your pressure. 6a can still be baited and punished with j.d as well as 6c, which is Noel being desperate to hit you, don't count 6c out though, it leads to retarded damage, even by Arakune's standards. It's not too good of a goto method and the practicality is on the low side, but 6c can stuff Noel's 2a if she's being too derp with it, if you can confirm CH, don't do the rekkas and go into 5a > air combo. On a standard level, rising j.b pressure is good for this, but beware of 6a. It's not in Noel players' mindset to block for too long. Once Noel is cursed, you still have to play carefully, test the waters with a fake out to see if the player is in a d mashing mood, either way you'll have to hit her hard, but Noel can do things when cursed that not too many characters can, it's similar to Hakumen using his drive, you'll have to take special precautions to avoid it. But aside from that assume regular curse shenanigans. It's worth noting that Noel has four primers, so you don't always have to go for mix up. Go for resets more than damage, you'll want to kill her on the first curse. When sitting on meter to f.g Noel will treat the floor like lava like any other rush down character, use that to your advantage.

Arakune's Defense

This is somewhere you don't want to be vs Noel. The second she lays a hand on you, you're in it for the whole ride unless Noel fucks up or you mash something out and get lucky. No longer can we backdash out for free, I've tried. Hard. It doesn't work, you'll have to be patient and pick your moments, don't try to jump out, it won't work too well, you'll have to go on the offensive. The worst part is that you can die without fucking up, Noel's 2a and 2c lets her chase you forever and at point blank range cross up 2d is a hassle. Your best friend is Gold Burst, it's a typical tactic to rush Arakune down recklessly when he doesn't have meter, so Gold Burst will turn the tables hard, go for 100% curse. I shouldn't have to say to burst wisely. STAY OUT OF THE CORNER. Noel may have good damage all around, but corner is where she gets 5k everything. If you're even near the corner, get out of it, any combo that uses 6c will provide corner carry. The air is your bestest friend more so than usual in this match up, Noel will go through hell trying to catch you out the air, abuse this. It best to disorient Noel to gain the upper hand, fake outs, invisibility, all that works well too, use the air for clouds.

Don't bother too much zoning, Noel is the fastest runner in the game so you'll only have time for either a bell bug, a cloud or a j.d.

Play this match up perfectly or die, make sure that the only moment where you are in Noel's face is when she is blocking/getting hit and not you, otherwise, dodge her like mad.

[LunaKage]

I agree with Skye's post mostly, except I'd place the matchup as even at worst, and at best 6/4 in Ara's favor, sure we do a ton of damage but one mistake and we're cursed, and Noel can't handle being cursed.

A bit of advice though, if you have Noel cursed just be a primer monster, she's only got four and Curse lockdown makes gobbling our primers easy, even if you can't break us by the end of curse we should have one primer left and no barrier, in which case break us just as curse ends and get in Dat FoG for recurse.

I'd like to note no Arakune has don that on me, despite my advice other-wise ;w;

[LordSpectreX]

Thanks Skye, I thought the matchup would be something like that. I find myself just superjumping and flying around as insanely as possible to be unpredictable. (Though that's how I feel a lot of matchups go with CS2 Ara, but oh well.)

I agree with Skye's post mostly, except I'd place the matchup as even at worst, and at best 6/4 in Ara's favor, sure we do a ton of damage but one mistake and we're cursed, and Noel can't handle being cursed.

Again, the problem with breaking the primers is the Counter Assualt. It's a Get-Out-Of-Curse for free card. If she uses it near the end of curse, she can just use it and likely put you in the corner by the time curse ends. Sure, it worked in CS1 again. But now the reward for a well timed CA is much higher.

Not only does Noel have the best tool in the game for wasting curse, but her drives force Ara to be cautious. And she's one of the fastest characters in the game. Breaking the guard primers also means that you pretty much won't get a chance for a reset. If you 2C the guard crush, you'd get around 4.5k with the curse you have left my then.

Edited June 28, 2011 by LordSpectreX

[LunaKage]

Which is why I said use it for recurse.

And CA is a good tool, but I wouldn't call it the best, even if we go through your stuff, we still have to deal with an onslaught of bugs still falling from the Sky, Makoto's parry I'd place as Curse mod god tier.

You can bait her CA with the D bug, and it will actually CH us out of CA, her CA has recovery, it's not instant as soon as we pass through you, hell Skye has hit me out of so many CAs I usually only use it once in a blue moon now out of fear of getting smashed by an 8k combo.

But I mean, keep at it I guess, you don't have to follow my advice, I'll just keep winning then :3

[LordSpectreX]

And CA is a good tool, but I wouldn't call it the best, even if we go through your stuff, we still have to deal with an onslaught of bugs still falling from the Sky, Makoto's parry I'd place as Curse mod god tier.

Here's a tip. If Arakune is right next to you when you do a CA, backdash. You're now in a bug blind spot.

You can bait her CA with the D bug, and it will actually CH us out of CA, her CA has recovery, it's not instant as soon as we pass through you, hell Skye has hit me out of so many CAs I usually only use it once in a blue moon now out of fear of getting smashed by an 8k combo.

And you wonder why he doesn't do guard primer breaking then? If he did, he wouldn't have many ways to deal with the CA. Since all of Arakune's guard primer moves require commitment, D Bug, or have a long recovery time.

But I mean, keep at it I guess, you don't have to follow my advice, I'll just keep winning then :3

Err...have we fought?

Edited June 28, 2011 by LordSpectreX

[Skye]

CA can get caught with the c bug easy.

[InspectorOda]

Guys, this matchup is barely any different then it ever was before. Only Noel's damage has really change (only off of specific moves also), and the fact that you can't auto pilot backdash on her drive. About her counter assault, 3AA is not even close to the only form of mixup. Other mixups can catch her escape attempts for free, specifically fake out mixups and several of the jC setups. Just lock her down with something like B bug > C bug so she can't D mash, then go nuts. Oh, and you can always use other bugs to cover you in addition to the generic 3AA > 6A bug if you expect a counter assault. It's not that much harder than baiting any other character's counter assault really, it's just more dangerous if you mispredict. Both Tao and Noel could have done this in CS (heck, even CT) also, same concept to bait and punish back then as it is now.

[LordSpectreX]

Guys, this matchup is barely any different then it ever was before. Only Noel's damage has really change.

I don't see how the CA can be baited with jC and fakeout setups when those setups require you to use 3A. They CA the 3A, they get out of the setup for free.

Edited June 28, 2011 by LordSpectreX

[Skye]

Guys, this matchup is barely any different then it ever was before.

I beg to differ, Noel have received a lot of attack level, hitbox and proration changes, those affect the match up greatly from CS1.

[LordSpectreX]

I beg to differ, Noel have received a lot of attack level, hitbox and proration changes, those affect the match up greatly from CS1.

Not to mention that Arakune tools have changed as well.

[Abyss]

For baiting the CA, I guess you can do with the 2A pressing:

2A (release 6A) 2A (release 4B), or something like that.

Lunakage ==> You won't be cursed for one mistake, unless Arakune have 50 heat. 5C FC and 2C FC doesn't lead to full curse anymore. You have to eat a 6A or a close 2A to get cursed without heat (or an airthrow).

[Skye]

100% curse starters.

6a

Gold Burst

Grab > Super (must get less than 30 hits)

CA > Super

j.b (corner or f.g)

5a > 6b (corner or f.g)

2a starter is character specific, I believe.

[Abyss]

Grab super? I can't get more than 80% curse with that. the last jC whiff.

2A isn't character specific, i've already said somewhere the combo if I remember:

2A > 5B > 5D > IAD > jA > j4A > jA > 5B > 5D > IAD > j4A > jA > 5A > 6B > j6D

I've tested it against all the cast. The one I didn't is Platinum, but if it work on Carl, it must work on Platinum too.

[Skye]

With Grab super, you have to get as few hits in the laser as you possibly can, the cap is usually 30 hits, with fewer hits, I believe the b dive variation can be used.