Siefer

-ID is not "the" answer to the dives, if it were, this match-up really would be a lot easier. It will sometimes clash with the dives. -Air GH is actually very effective for an Arakune that is running away. -Ragna's pressure isn't as great as people make it out to be, it's very easy to get out of it as long as you aren't in a corner, and it's even better for Arakune because he can jump after he's barrier pushed you out, and then run away and continue to do bullshit. You want to see good pressure, look at Rachel. -The overhead is bad, it's slow, the real threat up close is the fact that his 2A can beat out your 5B, you can't rely on 5B up close. I believe his 5A can also eventually combo into a move that will leave you cursed, this also beats 5B (maybe his 2A can do that too, I'm not familiar with the specifics of Arakune's combo potential).

That's only if you catch Arakune during his recovery frames from the teleport. This doesn't help if Arakune teleports across the screen from you. You MIGHT be able to catch him with a hell's fang...but I've never tried this, and I try to minimize my risks against Arakune. I personally think this is Ragna's worst match-up, but that's just me. There's no guaranteed way of getting out of curse. Honestly, you'll just have to hit him luckily, or hope he doesn't notice you're trying to burst your way out (if he's near you and hitting you). If he's coming in at you, ID is "ok" at hitting him, but not even that is guaranteed. 5B at 5B range (if he's actually on the ground...) is also pretty decent. When he's up close, he'll do 2A garbage, which I'm pretty sure beats your 5B (and it doesn't help with bugs flying at you from all directions). The best way of dealing with curse is...to just sit it out. Stay away from him, but make sure he doesn't back you into a corner for his retarded corner trap. If he comes in, you can try to ID him to get out of curse. You can also try j. D or air GH, but with all that crap on the screen, it may not hit. Honestly, if the Arakune knows what he's doing, and you're cursed, you're at a pretty big disadvantage... When not cursed, air GH is good in certain situations. J. D is also good, and j. A/B/C have limited applications as well. Air throwing isn't too shabby either depending on what he's doing. Basically, I find that if he's running away, air GH is your best option, but if he's charging in at you from the air, air GH may not always hit and you could get stuffed with a CH instead, so you'll have to see what he's doing and react accordingly. 5B at 5B range is pretty good, up close, I'm pretty sure your 2A stuffs his, but I can't verify that. Whenever you get the chance for damage, take advantage of it, and don't rely on pressure strings since the Arakune will try to jump and escape at any possible opportunity. Unless my combo leads into a 22C, I always opt for max damage combos here since I never know when I'll hit Arakune again. The key to this match-up is patience, having very good control over Ragna's movements, and capitalizing on any opportunity you get. Despite that, as an earlier poster mentioned, the Arakune player will be rewarded for their skill before you...

My bad. Chicken Blocking is basically when you jump and block at the last moment. I guess you can do it with barrier, but you don't have to, I mean, if you're already timing it at the last moment, IBing isn't a big deal. In this particular case (I remember chicken blocking from CvS 2), you don't need to be strict on the timing, just try to coincide the jump back as Arakune is diving. This also helps prevent cross-ups.

Ugh, I was afraid you would say that. Alright, thanks for verifying, I knew I wasn't going crazy, although it doesn't explain why I can still connect the B against certain characters online (like Jin) but not against others (like Hakumen).

Maybe it's just an online thing, but I've noticed that I sometimes can't connect 5B after the GH follow-up, when I should be able to. I'll use a simple combo as an example: Throw-214 B-214 D-5B-whatever. In training mode, I can connect this reliably almost 100% of the time. Online though, against half the cast, they can tech before my 5B hits them allowing them to do CH nonsense, these are characters I confirm in training mode to be able to combo (and it doesn't go black beat). The weird thing is, is that against characters like Jin, I'll still be able to do it...I'm not sure what exactly is going on here...What makes this even more annoying, is that in the corner against someone like Hakumen, if they tech they'll also create a cross-up opportunity and put YOU in the corner, something you don't want against Hakumen. I have tried changing my timing on the delay of the 214 D, and it seems to make no difference online... EDIT: It's actually gotten to the point where I'm beginning to use a different set of combos online then I would offline. I'm just worried this will affect my offline play in the end...

Jin can cancel his overhead into ice car, and then RC the ice car. It's situational, but it's something worth noting.

Unless you know the dive is going to land in front of you, I think it's better to chicken block the dives. The guy above mentioned it, but you have really good control of Ragna in air-to-air situations avoiding clouds and other bullshit. Despite that, you're still going to be cursed every now and then. Arakune has recovery frames after a teleport, you can punish him. It's stupid how he can go into a teleport right after a dive though... EDIT: I also want to note that Ragna's 6A does not always cleanly beat out the dive (it will sometimes clash).

Nah, it isn't, you're just doing it too fast. Take your time. It takes a little time to get used to just how far you can go laterally, but once you get the gist of it, you can start timing your jumps (you don't always need run momentum btw) so that they actually cross up with j.B. Just be careful in the air, generally speaking, Jin is better than Ragna in the air, so if he tries to come up to meet you, be ready for it. As for that 6D (I think it's 6D?) ice thing you're talking about, if that can hit you when you're above/behind him, you can just barrier or IB it (if it's possible). This strategy has actually worked surprisingly well for me lately and it reduces their 5D spamming a lot. When you do that, the ground is back for yours for the taking. Of course, if you ever land the j.B cross up, make sure to follow-up with combo of choice...

Uh, it depends on what ground loop you're trying to do. The only one I can currently do consistently is 5A-5B-5C-6]D[-etc. Sometimes I can throw in j. C after 6]D[. The biggest problem I had before was trying to break the loop down into parts before realizing that you can't do that because it's not possible to loop them if Nirvana hasn't recovered (needs more time). It's actually kind of hard to explain how I do it, because I subconciously know the timing now. I guess important things to note are that I hold down D again immediately after letting it go for Nirvana to attack.

I didn't see this mentioned earlier in the thread, if it has been, my apologies. For newer Ragna players: If you're still having trouble doing Ragna's basic RC combo (5B-5C-214 A-RC-dash 6D-D-dash 5B-3C-22C), there's a little trick you can do to help you. If you delay the 2nd D after 6D very slightly, it makes doing the entire combo so much easier. This is a pretty useful combo to know for Ragna, so any trick that helps you guys out with it is worth noting. I rarely see other Ragnas doing it online...

I'm not sure what you mean by a "lot" of time, at most I have about .5-1 second after 3C to IAD in order not to go black beat. I can only reliably connect it if I IAD immediately after 3C. EDIT: Unfortunately my reflexes and reaction time has gone down a bit with age, that window that seems like a lot of time for you guys just isn't enough for me (while also IADing and doing 2C). My method works as an alternative regardless, and I didn't see the exact notation posted before. I'm sure it'll help someone out there.

For those people having trouble with teleports in combos: I had this issue for awhile since no matter how fast I did it after 3C, Nirvana would teleport on to the wrong side, instead I had to figure out when it was best to do it before I even did 3C. This is my exact inputs: 2A-2B-5-2D-3C->etc. You have to go back to neutral, and press 2D before Carl recovers from 2B in order to combo into 3C. It's a little awkward at first (it was for me), but you kind of get used to it if you do it enough times. If anyone is wondering, the 2 from 2B counts as the first 2 you need for 22D. I'm sure everyone else here is an expert on this by now, but this is for the newer Carl players if they're having trouble doing it after 3C, since it's kind of essential to be able to do teleports in his combos.

What you can do after you block 5D largely depends on what the Jin decides to do to follow-up. If he does the dash follow-up from non max range, you can punish with 5B or C (I believe) into combo of choice. At max range though, I think Jin can actually recover from dash before you can 5B though, I know there are times when I can't punish his dash. The other benefit of 5B is that it'll beat out ice car if they decide to follow-up with that. If he does 5D again, depending on how far away you were, you're probably going to eat it if you tried to punish with 5B. Not sure about that. If he does 2A, he's going to win out. If he does DP, you're probably going to eat it if you do 5B. He could also IAD or jump. I'm not sure if this is distance dependent, but I know I've been CH'd with Jin's 5C if I tried dash 5B...maybe it's ping, maybe I'm bad, dunno, but that leads to major pain. Yea, 5D is really annoying. For approaching, the safest option is probably double-jump with run momentum. If you distance it right, you can actually cross Jin up with j.B and avoid his 623 A/B DPs and 5D. Double-jumping will also allow you to block Jin's superior air-to-air combat, or you can even do j.A which beats out a lot of Jin's stuff in the air depending on distance. For Jin's mash C, I just back off a bit, and if he's still in animation, I do hell's fang. It works for me.

Bribe the Arakune players. Hope that the v-13 players are bad. Know what to do against Jin. This is the best advice anyone can give you.

I can't speak on behalf of what Carl can do in particular, but Rachel can sit back for a bit and zone while her wind meter builds back up. I'm not sure you know what I'm referring to. I meant using the air super to get out of the clap loop after an air throw tech. Everyone else: Thanks for the input.

I'm relatively new to Carl, so if these questions have been answers in the 70+ pages before this, I apologize. In the latest Gamechariot vids, we see Dio go on his little rape rampage only losing to Shadow's Rachel at the end (in a very tight match that came down to the wire). Now that aside, there was something interesting I noticed Dio do during these vids: Despite the fact that Rachel can get out of the clap loop pretty easily, Dio was STILL attempting to do it to the Rachels he played against. It's not like Dio doesn't get to play against Rachels either. Is there a reason for this? Does he know something that I don't? The Rachels escaped the loop almost every time. In the latest AutonomousR vids (the ones with R-1's Noel), R-1 attempts multiple times to do Noel's air super to, I'm assuming, get out of the throw loop. He fails every time except once, but the time it "worked" I believe was more of a fault of the Carl's execution than anything else. Again, it's not like R-1 doesn't know this match-up (he plays against Dio's Carl), so is there a reason why he's doing this? Thanks for the help and insight.

I'm pretty sure they can do this too. Outside of Tager, I can't list any specific examples since only a few people have even thought of doing this against me (Tager was the only one thought of punishing me). It's something I encountered only relatively recently.

Well, the only reason that I'm mentioning that is certain characters can punish you after the backdash/jump if you throw out the 5B. I'm not aiming that at you, just to anyone else who thinks you can get a free 5B after blocked dead spike.

I don't remember if they have to IB it or not, but a lot of character can just jump back or back dash after blocking dead spike to avoid the 5B follow-up.

I can't help you out there headpower, the best ping I get online is yellow 3 bars, that explains why I have to dummy down some combos online... Anyway, have you guys seen the newest gamechariot vids? It looks like Kaqn may have given up Ragna for Noel...he busts out Ragna once against DIO's Carl, but he used mostly Noel in his vids. This is a shame, because I felt that Kaqn's Ragna was just starting to get really solid...

Just letting others know, I couldn't get the first combo to work on Carl/Arakune/Bang, in those cases, 6A straight into air combo seems like the best option, unless there is another that I'm not aware of that does more damage or sets up positioning better. I don't know if the 2nd combo is character specific as well. Thanks for the help on the 22C combos, although I still can't seem to time the ID ones. I've noticed in videos that they have to land in front of you in order to "pick them up", but that never happens for me.

I'm having trouble with Ragna's 22C enders in combos when they aren't on the ground, for example, after an ID or corner 5D. Does anyone have any tips on the timing or set-up of it? The few times I "pick them up", it doesn't register as a true combo (beat meter goes black). Thanks in advance.

Ohhh, that video was interesting, thanks.

I've gotten a little better at this match-up, here's what I have to say: -Learn to block. No seriously, as long as you can block her strings and identify the holes where you can sneak in, she becomes a lot less scary. -6A or DP her IADs as much as possible, make her afraid to jump in at you. -When you have the opportunity, pressure the hell out of her, just respect the DP. Respect the DP on wake-up. I'm actually not sure anything of Ragna's will beat her DP except maybe Blood Kain activation nonsense into something. -Ragna gets fucked up in the air against her, if you are going to do air-to-air, stick to early D or A.

This match-up is pretty retarded. Arakune is pretty retarded. If anyone has something to add to this, I'm all ears, because this match-up is pretty retarded.