Vayden

Im sorry but that just means you’re not playing Noel right. Many of Noel’s attacks have longer range and/or higher priority than Rachel’s. Add that to the fact her 5d has projectile, head AND body immunity, plus an insane 3.6k+ distortion-less combo that can be started from ANY opening attack, and you realize all it takes for Rachel to get beaten is for Noel to get an attack in 3 times. Oh, and lets not also forget that Rachel needs to expend more wind stocks for her more damaging frog combos to work on Noel, further hampering her efforts. Strictly speaking, with Rachel’s extremely weak air game, you should rarely, if ever, find yourself getting pressured by her.

His 360 and 720 are both techable. I've done it lots against my friend. Would be incredibly broken if it wasnt considering how easy it is to link it. Pretty surprised too first time I did it :D Heavy reliance on throws is prolly why he isn’t used much at higher tiers. With the large tech window you very rarely see players get thrown.

Anyone have any good combos that start with 3c? Seems like thats Rachel’s only slide attack. Ragna, Jin, Noel and Tager seem to recover too quickly to link anything from it.

Little trick vs Nu for anyone who doesnt know: If you stay at the edge of the screen her drive attack cant hit you. Instead of charging at them foolishly, employ reverse psychology and move back Simply rush them down when they realise they have to move closer for their attacks to connect. Do it right and their drives should be whiffing behind you. Was a lot easier beating my friend's Nu when I found that out

I find *starter* -> 6cdc unreliable for cornering human opponents in general. Barrier usually means that 2nd c is gonna whiff and leave you open. Maybe because I rely too much on a attacks for starters? Dunno. Kinda skeptical about the heavy reliance on pumpkin. Like I said, opponents who mostly stay in the air are practically immune to it since Rachel doesnt have very much to followup with after an air hit, and even a ground pumpkin whiffs against a sliding opponent. Using them alot also tends to burn the wind counter pretty fast, leaving you helpless earlier than you would like. I land 6a fairly often and get the occasional air combo in. Does crap damage compared to his combo though >_> Anyhoo, thx for the tips folks. Will try next time I play him

Chair only works the first few times; after that they learn to poke from outside the chair's range and move in when youre recovering. Most of my friends like to air dash a lot, relying only on lobelias and 6a for damage doesnt get you very far though. Rachel's combos are incredibly limited, and relying on summons vs a decent player who stays in the air most of the time simply doesnt work, and usually means free hits for them in a neutral situation. My main problem with my friend's Noel is he can start his insane damage combo from virtually any opening attack, while Im limited to miserable 1.6k-2.4k damage combos since frog doesnt work on Noel unless shes cornered :/ Not sure if youre referring to the move where she kicks her foot diagonally upwards, but that has hella range and I even lose to it coming in with 5a/5b, and definitely eat it if Im doing j.2dc.

I really only use 236a as keep away (when he tries to dash in) or at the end of a blocked string (for that extra push to make it harder to counter). Rachel’s air game is simply too weak for her to go head to head in the air so I have to resort to lobelias or 6a for anti-air when I see him air dash in. Problem is I don’t have anything decent to connect with after 6a hits. Offensively my options are also pretty limited with Noel having multiple AA counters to Rachel’s j.2dc and most of her drive CH attacks stunning for as long as Rachel’s 6b CH. In a head on ground collision the best I can hope for is a tie, the worst is him outranging me and getting a CH, leading to another slow and painful 4k combo. Overall, it seems pretty impossible to play an offensive Rachel vs Noel. The only times I can beat him is by staying defensive (helps to prevent surprise air distortions as well) which I greatly dislike.

Played around 30 matches vs a friend's Noel and more than once I've seen Rachel's 2A go through him so I'm pretty certain her 5D has body immunity in addition to head. Once he gets any overhead or slide attack in it basically leads to a 3.6-4k damage combo... without distortion. I dont even know which other character can do that. Her air distortion comes out almost instantly as well since she doesnt have a chant for it, making it incredibly easy to catch opponents off guard with it unless their turtling. With Rachel's extremely limited options (losing in both the speed and range department) I really see no other way aside from spamming lobelias or pumpkin and waiting for wind to charge up Anyone has any decent followups from an anti-air 6A? Cant chain into 5B so I was wondering what other combos there are for Rachel after the hit.

I'm sorry, but did you just advise us to zone... Nu??

Main problem is how wind is almost a necessity to reach her. Basically the other guy needs to get careless at least 3 times for you to stand a chance. Between two top tier players, my bet is on Nu.

My main style of play is rushing so that’s not an issue for me. The problem is how often I find myself rushing into the surfboard. I dislike pursuing people when they turtle since it tends to give them the advantage when they see me coming so I prefer to “zone” them (exception made to Nu of course) and force them to come to me, which, unfortunately doesn’t work quite well against Jin’s board + distortion. Arakune matchup supposedly favors Rachel because her 6A counters most of his aerial assaults, not to mention lobbing lobelias at him. Rachel has terrible air-to-air but excellent ground-to-air skills.

Yea, they always use mystic dagger (or whatever its called) when I try to zone them >_>

Well, that was fun, beating 3 higher level Hakumens so far by zoning. Its amazing how these guys dont know how to do anything aside from dashing in and slashing away wildly **edit** So has anyone found a reliable way to stop Jin's surfboard? Block-instant block isnt viable online with the 0.5-1 sec delay. My friend uses nothing but surfboard and I cant stop him >_>

So basically, I gotta play like a little girl? :X Well, not that thats a bad thing. Zoning helped me beat a Tager 10 lvs higher. Gotta love how they just sit there and wait for you to walk into their attacks. Didnt think itd work on Hakumen though since hes considerably faster with equal range. That, and I dont have a habit of using pumpkins and frogs unless my opponent is turtling. Frog seems to get avoided/killed easily too. Anyhoo, thanks for the tips. Ill be sure to try em ^

Anyone have some tips for a Hakumen matchup? I seem to have a bad habit of losing to lowbie Hakumens that simply spam their regular slash attacks. Cant reach them on the ground and Rachel has horrid air-to-air attacks so its hard to take em from the air too