[CS2] Rachel vs. Bang

[Kuuhaku]

Overview

This match up is much better than it was in CS1. Bang got beaten up by the nerf stick.

Tips/Misc

• Bang's crouching hitbox is pretty tall, so j.A will make him hate his life.
  
• Bang's mid screen damage now looks a lot like CS1 Rachel damage.
  

Character Specific Combos

JPN Match Up Videos

Here

Edited May 12, 2011 by Bohemian Polka

[gli]

Just to get this thread going, how are you guys defending against Bang? With Nails he gets a few tries on getting in before he has to play your zoning game. Therefore I think learning how to defend against Bang is beneficial. Common overhead predictions? Do you even worry about command grab? Common counters to his Drive moves?

[lolRee]

For my dear friend Pikdum :')

Bang's nerfs were pretty few imo.

His hitbox is a pretty easy one so I guess that's a point in Rachels favor.

To say Bangs midscreen damage is like Rachels CS1 damage is false. A good Bang will push from midscreen to corner for 3k-ish/ oki.

Gli...

- At longer-range, mash 2a after D-nails (their hitstun is terrible now) or just jump, that usually screws my day up. Just watch for 5b AUBs and the like.

- Bangs overheads, 5c, 6b, 6c (overhead that doesn't hit crouch...k Aksys) all gatling out of his early pokes. 5a, 2a, 5b. It's pretty slow but Rachels hitbox on crouch is large so it hits slightly earlier. It's an easy read if you're ready for it. As for 6b, a lot of people don't react to it. It usually comes right after 5c for the 50/50 with 5c>6a. Luckily it doesnt combo w/o heat or CH. It is + on hit though so at the very least, it'll reset pressure.

- Command grab hurts Rachels 2C. If Bang reads your jump away, he'll TK it and if he has 50 heat, he'll be more inclined to do it to go for the RC combo. Good news is the start up for 623C is pretty long so jump away and j.A or whatever it is you like to do.

- Rachel should react to Bangs drives similar to the way Haku does. If you see the Ds, 2c to CH combo. This starts a small metagame however. Bangs sees 2c, he'll try to rapid, so be aware.

- Misc. I play a lot of Rachel and poke the shit out of her super slow overhead. We've figured it out. Stop it, you're going to get hurt unless you have impish to make a true blockstring. J.A's however are way tricky... Lol trying to get wind back with Tempest Dhalia is often punished by a run up 3c. S'all I got. Give a little back in the Bang boards if you don't mind.

[[SpA]Relentless]

6c (overhead that doesn't hit crouch...k Aksys)

Sorry for OT but I literally just lol'd IRL :'D

[huey253]

bang's crouching damage/damage off overhead/damage off low are all relatively equal or lower than CS1 Rachel's midscreen damage.

bang however is much more complete of a character, so he has more tools to win.

6B leads into no combo unless it Counterhits or is RC'd into a sad midscreen combo (1.6k max for no oki) or around 3k in the corner.

Bang's true strength resides in the corner, as he becomes much stronger and his mixup leads into 3k instead of less than 2.

don't get command grabbed in the corner.

also Cat chair is REALLY good in this matchup, because bang's punish combo for crouching is under 2k without meter.

probably 6-4 in Rachel's favor.

[Chazmobile]

Also, I haven't tested this fully yet but if you see Bang guardpoint one of your moves, you may be able to cancel into cat chair based on whether or not he teles close enough to hit you or decides to follow through with the drive without the teleport for a CH and nice big combo.

[lolRee]

It's true that Bangs crouch damage is...poor in comparison to whomever. He has some reset option, and I suppose it's worth noting. Bangs crouch combo is going to be 5a>5b>2b>5d...then supa crash!!1! or D-nails(reset). If he has heat, maybe Daifunka, not Rachel specific really. See previous post or deal in your own way. Moving on to the Cat Chair, if we punish her 2C, it's going to result in a CH. To say that Bangs punish of Rachels 2C is going to be relatively low damage isn't always true. It's like this, see;

Rachel: catchair! /bait'd "no heat~FFFFUUUU"

Bang: 3C fatal/2C/any Drive/ 623C (w/ heat) etc. or true 4-seal combo = 2.5-4k from mid-screen depending on if Bang is feeling like the hammer of justice that day or not.

And yeah, like Chaz said, Rachel can 2C in block string on reaction, a lot like Hakus answer to Bangs drives.

[Alex073088]

Having a shit of trouble keeping bang out and also catching him. When he gets in his pressure is very diffiuclt to defend against. Once he is in its very hard getting bang off me he chases and chases over and over again. Has anyone had any trouble in this match-up?

[gli]

Those are exactly the problems I face. You just have to have that iron defense :V

[kotokot]

avoid nails and getting random hits, 2c/6a>623b can be punished with chair after ib, hit first and go into corner, bang have same problems with rachels pressure. The only problems are his command grab and nails. His drives suck, except 2d. Just bring him to corner and rape. I think this matchup is 6-4 for hime-sama.

[Alex073088]

Every normal in bangs arsonal is far better then rachels. HE only has trouble getting in when he has no nails. Before that he can keep u from zoning or catching him easyly.

I actually beat the bang i was having trouble against just yesterday after losing consistently in player matches(i did win many rounds but never the whole match), i beat him in ranked. That bang is tsunna. Things to note that will help make the match-up a little bit easier:

Frog honestly is a waist of time espically depending on bang players playstyle, bang should be darting all over the air. using your time to summon a frog is pointless since a good bang will never allow it to catch him. It also creates oppurtunities for bang to rush over to your location and rush you down.

keep moving around and only summon one thing on screen at time. It only becomes very easy for bang to lock you down if your steadly summon in the air or the same ground location.

Another thing is if nails are used to approach, and you did happen to block from a afar, The aerial bang may use afterward all have a weak spots. j.b will not hit rachel crouching. bangs jump c can be cat chait or j.b. And obviously j.a can be anti aired by 6a.

coming from the sky while bang is grounded..players tend to always guardpoint(ever since ct days) to try and beat an air attack. wind yourself downward and either block then punish or quickly grab him.

against bangs pressure, im lost you have to look out for command grab, overhead, really good tick throws, 2a, cross-up(which can be punished before they happen), and your guard being broken. damage isnt good till u end up in the corner but u still have to deal with him getting his guard point symbols off every hit mid-screen. once he becomes super bang the match gets even worst then before.

Cat-chair is good but it can be baited use it sparringly and mix up guessing if the bang is gonna respect a cat chait opening and act according. 6-4 to me would be hazama vs rachel haz favor. I belive this match-up against bang is no more 5.5-4.5 rachel favor or even. Rachel has to respect way tooo many things from bang where in other matches she doesnt have to as much like vs ragna or valkenhayn.

Edited September 19, 2011 by Alex073088

[[SpA]Relentless]

Thing is though, Bang only has 12 nails and can only use D nails for a free approach. So he only gets max. 4 free approaches per round. Sometimes less because he also uses C nails for midscreen combos. If you can make him waste his nails stupidly that's a huge advantage for you already.

I'd also say it's in Rachels favor 5.5-4.5, she has trouble dealing with his rushdown but once Rachel pins him down he's got the same problems. But Rachel has more and better approaches with pumpkin and does more damage overall.

I think 6A is very good against all of his aerial attacks. Rachel's j.C might also work but I'm not sure about it.

I'll try and post more impressions of this matchup when I get to play against Bang again.

[Chazmobile]

D nails don't exactly give him a free approach anymore, if he tries to throw D nails mid to fullscreen and then tries to blindly run up 5a/5b or jump in with j.c, you can poke him out of it or anti air him for free; honestly you should be more scared if he starts to set up bumpers. Guardpoints can be cat chaired on reaction if you see that they're going to commit for massive damage and pumpkin shuts down a lot of his options, particularly without nails. Bang's pressure isn't even that good anymore, and his mix-up is relatively easy to block and generally has weak payoff midscreen and mediocre payoff in the corner; barring command grab of course. Basically all of his moves that break primers are unsafe so start IBing that shit. I'll agree in saying that summoning frog is relatively useless outside of oki situations though.

The only really terrifying thing is FRKZ, but that's a given and has been mentioned already.

6a rapes him, Rachel pressure rapes him, j.a overhead rapes him, our damage rapes him, our oki rapes him. This is around 6-4 Rachel. Just my 2 cents, feel free to correct me if i'm wrong.

Edit: Forgot to mention that Bang is actually a good character in the corner, so try not to get locked down there. Shouldn't be too hard not to if you use wind smartly.

Edited September 19, 2011 by Chazmobile

[Alex073088]

Rachel damage rapes to an extent. She as bang needs to hit with something out of the ordinary to gain alot of damage midscreen. Regardless of oki bang has great options on wake-up when he has 50 percentage meter that u need to bait. The double palm fist move that bang does out ranges rachel so that she doesnt get a free punish every single time. And 6a is not gonna anti-air j.c and this was established since ct days.

Same goes for bangs ground slide which is more difficult to punish due to its range and slides ride under neath of zoning. And im sure if bang tk nails u when your blocking him he has a shiton of hard to read options upon his landing. I mean its pretty straight forward though. You have overhead, 2a, or command grab.

[Chazmobile]

Rachel damage rapes to an extent. She as bang needs to hit with something out of the ordinary to gain alot of damage midscreen. Regardless of oki bang has great options on wake-up when he has 50 percentage meter that u need to bait. The double palm fist move that bang does out ranges rachel so that she doesnt get a free punish every single time. And 6a is not gonna anti-air j.c and this was established since ct days.

Same goes for bangs ground slide which is more difficult to punish due to its range and slides ride under neath of zoning. And im sure if bang tk nails u when your blocking him he has a shiton of hard to read options upon his landing. I mean its pretty straight forward though. You have overhead, 2a, or command grab.

Indeed Ashura is a great wakeup option, but the fact of the matter is that without 50 meter he is pretty harmless when knocked down. Also, wouldn't 5cc oki>george push you out far enough to not get hit by wakeup ashura? Just a theory but that fact could make this match a bit more in our favour? Slide is pretty punishable, but as it's Rachel's normals we may not be in range to get a nice punish, or even a punish at all for that matter! But, it does hand momentum back to us which is important.

[[SpA]Relentless]

Ashura I believe can be baited with cat chair during frog oki. Knock him down, summon frog, (he neutral techs), run up 2C. If he does Ashura, 2C will guard it and hit him in his recovery together with the frog, which gives you enough time to go into a full combo. If he blocks 2C, the frog will keep you safe, and you at least took a primer and can still do mixups afterwards.

And the slide is very unsafe if blocked (prepare for it if you know he likes to do it) unless he spaces it very well, and since he basically puts yourself right in front of you, you should always be in 5B range. Just make sure he can't rapid cancel it to fake you out and make you eat a counter hit.

[KoopaDoopa]

Relentless;1140242']Ashura I believe can be baited with cat chair during frog oki. Knock him down' date=' summon frog, (he neutral techs), run up 2C. If he does Ashura, 2C will guard it and hit him in his recovery together with the frog, which gives you enough time to go into a full combo. If he blocks 2C, the frog will keep you safe, and you at least took a primer and can still do mixups afterwards.[/quote']

Alternatively, you could just input 1C- if the Bang tries Ashura then he'll eat the frog as you said, but if he tries to drive teleport crossup it'd input as 3C.

[kotokot]

you can try to use wind for punish. And you can jump over slide for free j.2c lv2.

[Alex073088]

in terms of the bang match-up are people really insisting that its easier for rachel to beat bang over another character like platinum. When fighting platinum is clearly easier then fighting bang?

[Kuuhaku]

As someone else stated earlier- if D nails give you a problem, jump so that you avoid them completely. If he uses D nails in a block string, if you IB and he keeps going you can poke him out with 2A. The key is to watch at what distance you block D nails. If he does it far enough away where the third nail hits late, this won't work... but in any other instance, it will.

For Ashura on wake up, summon and dash break. If he's just doing it on reaction to your approach and not on reaction to you doing something, this is a much safer option than trying to do dash 2C to hit him out of it.

[gli]

After playing this match-up more I'm convinced it's slightly in Bang's favor.

But once he runs out of nails it's 6-4 for Rachel.

The only thing stopping him from doing extended pressure is cat chair.

Quick rise 5A is a pretty good option for Bang though so watch out for that.

Edited December 5, 2011 by glirandly

[Herbal Grey]

bang has a number of frame traps, so yea, there's not a lot to do besides block unless you want to take big damage, although i have more success with backdashing, especially after an ib. eventually, lots of bangs like to do 5a dash command grab, which means you have to backdash or jump immediately after the 5a or you're about to take big damage for shenanigans.

even the best bangs tend to autopilot, which is why they get demolished by cat chair imo

general. if u play bangs who like to mash d, GRAB THE **** out of them. if they try to use 2d to anti-air, pull out pumpkin to delay your drop, then hit them with the pumpkin. cat punch goes through nails...it's is better though to wind yourself up to grab them before they can throw out nails if they are using them very liberally...or, wind yourself up over the nails. using one wind to avoid three nails hurts rachel less than it hurts bang. remember that an air grab with two wind stocks is 4k METERLESS...considering how much bangs love to jump and use nails, it's a good strategy to try to air grab them because if you let them get you locked down, like gli says, you're pretty screwed

bang does not have good defensive options, so if you can get a bang on defense, you will probably win the round, as long as you don't let them start doing d's on wakeup....don't try to zone bang. having a few rods out is always good, but pumpkin will be much more useful for you to stop his attacks and go on offense.

[Tari]

Watch out for stuff like quick-rise j.D, D nails into 2A/command throw mixup, etc. His offense is fairly strong, and he can throw out some very wild stuff on wakeup (he might as well, sometimes), even though his actual defense options are pretty meh.

[gli]

One more thing, dealing with Steel Rain (umbrella super)...

After the initial super flash, the nails themselves come out pretty fast so you almost have to anticipate that they are already going to be out. If Bang is near, you can attempt to throw him so you can avoid having to block the nails (this is similar to avoiding Daisharin or Kokushi Musou or similar Distortion Drives). Otherwise try avoiding them if you can by winding out if you have to. If you don't think you can make it out then just guard as best as you can (IB them as well that's a lot of meter to gain!). If possible, you will want to jump to guard all of the nails to avoid having to guess high/low. Of course this means you should barrier appropriately to deal with air unblockables. You only really have to deal with air throws in this case unless Bang wants to somehow cross you up in the air or something.

The only thing I need more experience with is dealing with FRKZ. Tempest Dahlia is really useful I find since it keeps him off of you. Even if he is able to just 8-way dash his way out of any TD it gives you breathing room to setup a pumpkin/frog or get some wind back.

Edited December 6, 2011 by glirandly

[Tari]

Remember that he can guardpoint TD and get free damage on you if you're space badly.