bmore303

I think that's the general consensus of Noel, I don't know anyone scared to match-up against us. I've gotten plenty of "run it back" , but meh =| . She doesn't have anything to capitalize on that isn't risky in the first place. As a Noel player, I don't think you're allowed to be consistent in your tactics ever, meaning play risky/unexpected in different rounds or get stuffed. HARD...in THAT hole...NO lube either.

I really wonder if they hate this character or if secretly there are Noel's winning tourneys everywhere >_>. On one end our staples are getting destroyed left and right, but our basics are finally coming around a bit. Honestly I've learned to play without Haida Loop and consistently have the heat/dmg I need..it's upsetting to see Haida go, but at the same time I'm fine without it. Spring Raid, first we lost invinc on our half-ass wannabe DP..now we send them the other way <_> confused. Dunno why this was changed since most Noels i see can't even land the 66C followup. Damn it.. Bloom causes slide...granted I'm a bit meh, but I foresee an RC into 3C without teching outside of combo =). Currently you can land a Bloom trigger, RC into 6C shenanigans soooo hopefully it's not far off. Proration though?? In all honesty it's better to look at all the character changes together. We may be getting off light, but I haven't done much reading on the recent test yet.

Mayflash body requires effort to mod, I like the weight of mine though. Don't accidentally strip the PCB though >_>

How often do you see Noel wake-up 2D outside of Nas playing ffs >_> . It's usually not a win situation in CS at all.

^That's all there is to it, either S.j + double jump over 214D or shoot it and save barrier. Approach cautiously

This .... 5/5 my ass...this match-up is not simple offline. 4/6 in Haku's favor is fine by me. Played some Valks online today for the first time. One was pretty decent and gave me trouble. His range is superior as well as damage potential. The upside, his block strings THUS FAR are worse than Noel's. Almost everyone strings in his charging shoulder attack if you barrier him out a bit and there are a lot of other unsafe holes I'm seeing. All of which allow 4D through even without IB. Hell I've slid a 2D into super because he's so slow. Not only that, but in a battle of approach if he goes wolf PUNISH! He can't back down unless he cancels and for a moment he can't go into barrier. Not even gonna attempt to name a match-up on this until I see some decent offline Valks locally hopefully. Like I said before, why doesn't anyone know that optic barrel stops Lambda's 214D >_< . If anything a B or C version will leave plenty of time to block any further attacks from her.

Hmm Optic Barrel clashes with Lambda's 214D saving your primers / barrier. At the same time you sacrifice any possible mobility options you could have attempted though =\ . Tao - True, air to air you really can't do anything but poke her down with J.a which may net you a 1.6k combo or so =| . Other than that it's an experience matchup. Noel's 6A aa is even more ass in this match because the timing is way more strict. Litchi - Thing is this match has two sides, with staff and without staff. CHANCES ARE if you're playing the likes of LK they're NOT going staffless for no reason. Which case I'll call it 3.5 . Without staff Noel still can't pull an air approach unless you gain a height advantage and somehow pull a connecting j.d out your ass. How you do this against a decent Litchi who knows. 3.5 with staff ... 4 without since Noel's opportunities open up exponentially.

Carl could range from 4.5 to 5.0 never in our favor though. He'll almost always beat Noel in the air(FAYTALL), and on the ground is a matter of not getting trapped with Aida. Noel can pressure the hell out of Carl in the right situations and end the round in 2 combos or so. A cornered Carl is a panicked Carl almost always. Just know when to fall back when Aida is called in range. I've ended rounds with sudden Optic Barrels if used rarely because for some reason Carls start to rush pressure. Tager ... this debate will never end. I don't think it's THAT lopsided. I honestly think it's even 5/5, but many will disagree. It's obvious Noel needs A LOT of opportunities in this match-up, but again it depends on who's playing. I'll accept the 4-6 for general rating =\ Jin..I dunno 4.5-5 or 5-5 he beats you in the air and his invincibility frames on the ground can be a pain(online). Offline he's much easier to handle and easily baited and left wide open for Noel's setups. At the same time a single rush down from Noel can get turned around with a single reverse throw leading to a 5k corner combo from Jin. Makoto...DP..236A..enough for a .5 advantage over Noel. Ragna, in terms of overall ability in moves, yeah he is hands down 4-6 better, but this again is a match-up I believe can be easily turned to a 5-5 by just playing with common sense. Ragna just plain excels in a lot of areas Noel does not, but Ragna is so cookie cutter, that Noel can easily poke through / counter his bs. Taokaka, A close friend of mine plays Tao and you'd think this was 5.5-4.5 in Noel's favor in a lot of Tao player's eyes. I call it 5-5 or 4.5-5.5. Tao's mixups are just as lacking as Noel's and fairly predictable. Not only that but some of the more common Tao block strings have blaring gaps that let Noel slide in a 4D fatal and we all love 4D fatals. Now the next problem is both of these characters are utterly horrible at guard breaking, period. BUT Noel gains a nice amount of heat easily with her simpler bnb combos. In a battle of guard breaks, Noel wins hands down even if it requires RC's to remain safe. Losing guard libra to Tao is pretty damn difficult to do unless you don't know the match-up. Why Tao is clearly higher tier? She still can mix you up much safer than Noel ever will be able to dream of doing, she can get out of situations much more quickly than the entire cast, and lol taunt loop into any corner from anywhere. Noel does have a slight range advantage with 5B and 5C, but the downside is that Tao can crawl ._. or you won't net a combo worth mentioning if they connect. Tsubaki, this character is so rare that if I do stumble across a player that knows how to user her with proper block strings and combos I don't know where to block simply because of lack of experience. No Comment, but I'll take 5.5-4.5 from what I know of trying Tsubaki myself. Valk, haven't played a decent one yet Mu-12, this is another one of those 5-5 to 4-6 depending on the layout and positioning. If you aren't prepared Mu will look like a complete ass-whooping waiting to happen. If you play omg RUSHDATSHIT / BAITDATDP you'll be fine. Kinda like CT Rachel, don't let the cunt breathe for a second or suffer the consequences. Don't be overzealous or again suffer the consequences. One of those type of matches... 4.5-5 is probably good placement simply because zoning characters make Noel work even harder. Basically I'm siding with you on just about all of those. If we were to debate just on the tools of each character than I'd probably agree 100% on each one. Noel is lacking in the tools department, but at the same time if you know your match-ups and the mechanics of your opponents you can hold your own just fine. I honestly have more trouble just fighting mirror Noels because I expect too much now.

Noel sucks, what's new =\

Lol this game is horrid, but somehow amusing and fun to play. I'll just say SoSo (scythe chick) for top tier. Loops are easy...using a stick here.

Good point^ .....now I'm torn >_<

QFT. Like previously said, compared to other AA's in this game it's pretty low in quality.

Right the timing on landing 6a on Hakumen is slightly different and I've found it almost will always knock him out of range of a combo if you play it extra safe. Either way I'm only netting approximately 2.4k + heat from a 6a anti air.

You must be playing online >_> . I play this one more cautious than Tager. Seriously Noel is out-ranged in all ways, and can be countered easily. Hope you can IB

Lol I wouldn't doubt it. Most matchups are play and learn..for some reason people don't ever get the Tager matchup. /shrug

Lol definitely wasn't saying RELY on hearing them mash out 360, if anything a Noel player needs to get in the habit of knowing which bits of her fail block string she needs to jump-cancel out of ...or risk eating a fat 360/720 or a sledge of all things. And hope to hell you don't get caught in the magical land of predictability and get an atomic collider thrown in your face when you try. Was just stating a large experience I had with offline Tager players, but not all. I honestly don't fish for Noel fatal counters in this matchup, it just doesn't work in most situations. The damage for the coming combo, sure 5k..wheee...but I'd feel a lot more comfortable with a less punishable approach for 3.6-4k. J.4D is a CH waiting to happen in most situations and I typically am not in the right range to effectively land and USE a 4d fatal hit without an RC I want to waste. If anything I'll just regain distance with bloom trigger if I feel spring raid is too far out. And I fully agree with Heroic on the matter of the corner, Noel ISN'T threatening to a cornered Tager at ALL. Tager IBs all predictable Noel approaches because we aren't getting much closer than 5B,C,D range, and try something else and you're poor Noel is probably getting wrecked. You can try to drive chain them, but why even fish for the IB Sledge if it's not needed? Unless we go into D.a high speed then throw out a D.6b for a mixup you can still see it and block accordingly. At worst we'll just bloom trigger the end to regain some distance and you still have all your guard libra (unless d.6c was thrown out) It's a game of cat and dog, where you either have to let them get reckless or bait the hell out of them for both parties. More so Noel since Tager players should know most of our crap isn't safe. J.c into 360, yeah happened to me once, never J.c'd against a Tager out of combo again. Yeah obviously jumping in and jabbing A while standing in CS, not the best idea against Tager. Most desperate tactic against a Tager, allow magnetism. Land a 5D/5C CH during a dash combined with a Tager Mag attack, either get a weird trade or you win a combo because they got excited =| . Orrrrrrrrr, you get trolled hard and you lose. This is possibly the dumbest thing I've tried in this matchup that works out of randomness or some would say "mind games" ._. , I say luck.

Was late, only played on 360 against Alex and a friend of mine. Maybe next time I won't work as late or just call out.

This. Keep them on their toes, and apply pressure intelligently. And know when to fall back. Most Tagers get a bit anxious under pressure and will opt to spark bolt as soon as their meter is full leading to an easy whiff. Play more mind games than the Tager player if you can. If they see you rushing them down during their wake-up you can almost guarantee they're mashing out 360/720/1080. Just time that last second jump and make them eat counters unless they tech roll away in the unlikely case. In the chance you some how whiff a counter hit 5D or 4D I suggest bloom trigger to push Noel away asap if you don't have heat to waste. Assault through is a guaranteed grab into combo waiting to happen and a blocked spring raid will usually spell the end of the round unless you're doing RC shenanigans. I'd save heat for RC and CounterAssault in the off chance you get cornered. Only super if u see them wide open or can combo into it ending the round. Honestly this matchup isn't impossible, it sucks because he needs 2 chances to win the round where we need 3..4..even 5 if you're playing it insanely safe. Online Tager, lol yeah...GG not impossible but you'll get caught in purple grabs ffs >.< . Offline, another story. You wouldn't believe how often you can catch pad AND stick users mashing out 360s by just ear alone and react accordingly. Not only that but it seems a lot of them are conditioned for online and not offline reaction speed. Baiting Tager's grabs and breaking them immediately will upset them beyond belief.

Yep Alex I'm here lol. I get off at 5 or 530 that Sat so I'll be there some time after 6 FOR SURE. Not bluffing for once >_> . I'll have a Tao player and possibly a Bang there as well if they don't BS me. I need to practice GG and MB again, I'm horrible now >_< . As for equipment I'll just have my horrid CT 360 Hori stick I need to mod and my custom Mayflash stick for PS3/PS2..that's incompatible with GG:AC...WTF?

With that said I guess I need to finally call out of work and make my way up there for once.

Missed out...had to close at work ._. Did catch part of the SSFIV stream though

Crazy my group wanted to get some Guilty in, but couldn't find it for anything. Didn't see TvC either, o well =\

I didn't play any Lambdas either =\ . I sure as hell didn't see any Guilty. I did lurk Melty Blood for a short while though.

Jeez...on the other setup this dude mashed the turbo function on and we didn't know how to turn it off. Freaking ridiculous. Yeah my purple PS3 stick was in there and a bottle of water. I'm pretty sure I was the only person there with a purple stick in the tourney.

Because of the nature of Otaku Conventions I tend to keep to myself because there are some folks there I was already avoiding due to annoyance <_< . Probably would have said more if we could have used our sticks in free play and not just the tourney. Only reason I was lugging that freaking Nintendo bag.