kuma

I'm sure this has been covered somewhat already. As far as I know, this isn't a terrible fight for Noel, just 4-6 or something. It's not unwinnable. The key is to be careful. Never leave gaps in a blockstring. Tager can 360 you if you do. Stop your string and watch for what the Tager does when you hit a part of your blockstring where there would be a gap. If they always 360, start punishing them for it. Try to avoid magnatism at all costs. 3C used to be reliable against Tager's Spark Bolt, but this is no longer the case (you can do it, but you have to start long before Tager enters the command). 4D is a much better option now. From across the screen, there are a limited number of ways that Tager can approach. Learn each of them and how to respond. Once Tager is close enough, start pressure. Capitalize on any hit. Tager is one of the easiest characters to Haida loop; take advantage of this. When you've finished a combo or blockstring, you can start pressure again or run away and force him to approach you. If Tager is hanging out at the other side of the screen, throw an Optic Barrel or two at him to get him moving. Half your attacks won't work against Tager half the time. Don't throw out random D moves. Only use D when punishing. 5C and j.C are dangerous, but useful. Be careful with them.

Honestly, I prefer 5D into a full combo vs sledge happy Tagers. It trains them not to do it, and moreover to be afraid of attacking you. Obviously, this is sometimes problematic online, but offline you can 5D on reaction.

Oh god yes.

Derf. Just realized I said "had the game" rather than "had access to the game". I meant in CS2. It's good to know that Fenrir's damage is buffed in CS2, though. It means that that combo will do at least 4700 damage.

I don't think it's a stretch to assume that Noel could get up over 4500 damage midscreen with 50% tension. For a game where midscreen damage for most characters is drastically reduced, this is amazing. If anyone out there has the game, could you test out the damage from 2D > d.6A > d.6C > 214A > 2B > 6C(1) > j.D > d.6D > d.6B > d.5C > d.6B > 632146D? I'm guessing it will do about 4600, but it would be nice to have confirmation.

Two combos from a Gucci video. Probably character specific for characters that can be hit with 22B after 214A > 2B > 6C(1). j.4D > d.6A > d.6C > 214A > 2B > 6C(1) > 22B > 22C > 66C(1) > 236A > 6C(1) > j.D > d.5D > d.6A > d.6B > 236D - 3,897/38 4D (fatal) > d.6A > d.6C > 214A > 2B > 6C(1) > 22B > 22C > 66C(1) > 236A > 6C(1) > j.D > 236D - 4060/40 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsb7W_2jsH0 From another Gucci video: 2D in the corner 2D > d.6A > d.5A > d.6C > 623D > 6C(2) > 6C(1) > j.D > d.6D > d.6B > d.5B > d.5C > 236D > 632146D - 4851/42 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUYd4ruF020

This is a bit meta, but since Noel is being completely rewritten again, can we please split out the old Noel content (esp. match threads) this time?

Yeah, but we're talking about a lower level of play. Even if you haven't gotten the hang of those things, you can still beat mashers easily. It's the difference between victories and perfects. My advice applies to people who have spent the time in training to learn blockstrings and combos, but not enough in combat to learn matchups, positioning, etc. If you already know how to control space then you're already beating mashers and you're doing it in a better way, but one that's hard to explain on a message board because it involves having muscle memory understanding of the mechanics of the game. Edit: And frankly, unsafe 3C->haida is just fun.

Did you even read my post? I was saying that you shouldn't do that. We're disagreeing about the meaning of mashing, because you're making up your own definition. Anyway, getting back onto the subject of what a newer player should do when encountering mashers: You remember the stupid stuff you used to do back when you were a fledgling D-masher? The kinds of things that all the other players said were "cheap" and "unfair", until they figured out that they could beat pretty much all of it on reaction and you stopped doing it? Yeah, that stuff still works against mashers. And even better, you've grown, and you can combo off it now. I take particular glee in doing totally unsafe 3C->haida loop over and over again (by which I mean four times, since that's as long as the match lasts) when they don't block it. Noel is full of stupid BS gimmicks that aren't viable at high level play. I know that you've practically forgotten them after learning things like blockstrings and real combos, but against mashers you can let yourself go. Have fun, throw out stupid BS just because, and smile with glee when you cause some troll to be angry enough to ragequit.

You're wrong. You can play on auto-pilot using sound strategies and good techniques against a masher and lose. Mashing beats a bunch of Noel's tactics outright. That isn't to say that fighting mashers is hard. You just have to play in a style that takes their mashing into account, rather than doing the same old same old. You have to know how to do this against good players, too. I know that when I'm facing someone against whom mashing works, I do it. You have to be able to change the battle so that the other player knows that mashing is dangerous. Then you can actually start the serious match.

It's also possible that you're holding down D too long (although a bit less likely). If you hold down D, she'll actually ground cancel the j.D into a d.5D due to the 5x button input. This can be useful. It means that you can ground cancel into 236D, 214D, and 263D without pressing the D button twice, but it can mess you up when trying to cancel into other moves if you aren't thinking about it.

So it seems to me that with the changes so far (for the first loctest), the idea seems to be that other than j.4D not being good enough, Noel is pretty much around the right power level. And I was thinking about whether they might be right. If Noel's j.4D is as fast as everyone seems to be saying it is, then you could use it as an anti-anti-air. On reaction, even, against some characters. This means that you could get free counter-hit combos jumping in, and you can almost always disengage with something like d.5B d.4D d.236D on block. Once they do start being afraid to try to anti-air you, you get a true high-low mixup between a late j.4D and ground cancelling j.D into d.6B for a drive combo into d.6C wakeup. I'm thinking that could be pretty powerful. Again, baseless assumptions, early loctest, etc.

I am loving the 5B > 2B gatling. I would love it even more if they would give 5B just slightly better properties. I guess that is a lost cause, though, since Noel's normals are deliberately not that great in order to make us use drive more. I can always hope, though, that Noel will get some slight improvement to her normals by the time the game releases.

It says "5D's invincibility time decrease" as the change, so I don't think that's the case. I think it's just a mistake.

Yeah, since it's in the "nerfs" category I'm going to stick with my original interpretation. Although they seem to have accidentally put 5D invincibility reduction in the "buffs" category, so... Also, there's a note next to the 22C/22B changes that says that the degree of the changes are so small that there doesn't seem to be anything to worry about.

I'm almost certain that it means that the hit area of the move has been compressed, not that it's moved closer to Noel. Again, it's apparently minor, so make of that what you will.

From what I heard it's really minimal. There's no problem with Haida looping. I want to see it too. There's a video with Noel in it, but unfortunately she doesn't do this move even once. Doesn't really do much of anything, actually.

Noel has 2C>5C gattling because half the cast is getting it. It's just a general change in how gattlings work in the game. It's not meant to buff Noel.

Yeah, but it's a bit repetitive to have to say it every time. Just saying that if they do keep both those changes, or make new changes that we don't know about, even the stupidest looking things could turn out to be useful.

2C>5C could be kind of useful for some semblance of mixup. Someone before mentioned following 5C with j.4D. I heard that j.4D crosses up at low heights. If it crosses up at the very beginning of the jump, and really is pretty much instant, then we could have an actual mixup. Of course, this is rampant speculation, and I doubt it would wort like that, but one can always hope.

Apparently 2C>5C is a change that's being made for a bunch of characters. It's something that probably started with one character, and spread to a bunch of others. Yeah, it's not that helpful, but it's not really made for us.

All the Noels that I used to watch have stopped playing Noel. I'm waiting for SBO to see if anyone new emerges. We really don't have many recent videos to go on.

R-1 is a Noel player. He was one of the first to really get the hang of CS Noel, so certain combos that he started doing are labeled under R-1 combos. And yes, "Off 214" means 214A

Yeah, because you pull back it puts you out of range of the 4D, and there's plenty of time to charge it to 3 before Noel finishes with her 4D. Unfortunately, if you're at midscreen there's not much you can follow up with. Getting punished for the 4D should be enough to make them more wary about using it in the future, though. I'm not sure if you could use Shooting Star in the same manner, but if you could it would be a much better combo starter. I'll try it out next time I'm up against a Noel that loves 4D.

Have you tried baiting 4D with neutral impact? If you catch them out on it a couple times, they'll be more likely to use it sparingly.