Ragna the Bloodedge/Move List

CP= Chronophantasma gives him a few new touches such as a ground sliding and wall-sticking Not Over Yet, a ranged Dead Spike, and his new Blood Scythe move, giving Ragna a new overhead punishing tool that can lead into all sorts of new combos (though it counts as one of Ragna's slowest moves, on startup on ground, or recovery time in midair). His overdrive, Blood Kain Idea, is an altered version of his original Blood Kain Distortion Drive, and functions roughly the same. However, a majority of nerfs from his CS Extend incarnation has fallen hard on him, such as his 6A being nerfed in having more recovery, 2C losing its Fatal Counter property, having a subpar-ranged Crush Trigger (which also may limit his needy use of meter), no reliable combos off of 6B that have frame advantage, a nerfed j.D in terms of proration 2 rating, a more strict usage for his Belial Edge, and a weaker Devoured by Darkness outside of his Overdrive. However, buffs to his Hell's Fang recovery, Not Over Yet being a powerful non-deteriorating corner carry tool, Dead Spike having more range with being cancellable, Back Spin Kick having better use for combos with more untech time, and a few new effective combo routes can prove to give Ragna an edge once more.

Chronophantasma also changes Soul Eater's values again. The first hit still applies 100% base life steal, but this time, the second hit has 90% of the value, the third with 95%, and the fourth back up to 100%. Subsequent Soul Eater hits from there onwards then scale to an extra 5% life steal per SE hit, scaling up to 150% max, and from there, the following hits do 160% and then to 180% being the cap, which now enables Ragna to be rewarded even more if he uses a powerful life stealing attack at the end of a combo with roughly 12 Soul Eater hits landed, such as with a Devoured by Darkness.

Ragna's new Overdrive is an alternate version of his Blood Kain which makes use of the Idea Engine, aptly named Blood Kain IDEA. It acts roughly the same with the only change being its duration reworked with the Overdrive mechanics. CS/CSII/CSEX= In Continuum Shift, Ragna was provided with several major buffs which pushed him up into top tier. Most importantly, the addition of the move Belial Edge (j.214C) set him up for some easy, extremely high-damage combos, many of which end in his Not Over Yet (22C) special, which deals fixed, unprorated damage and forces standing, preventing the opponent from rolling. Additionally, his 2C is now extremely safe and fatal counters on hit, giving him an easy setup into extremely high damaging combos (over 8k). Last but not least, his Soul Eater drive moves now regain a fixed amount of health (as opposed to a percentage of damage dealt, as in CT), allowing him to steal much larger quantities of health unaffected by proration and to gain health in a more fair amount. As well, he can heal only when the orbs touch him, instead of healing him on hit.

However, his combos can still be badly affected by damage scaling if they are dragged on for too long. Plus Ragna's capabilities lie within the corner; when out in the open, his Belial Edge can mess up quite a few things and it becomes much less effective, but it does not leave him open to enemy attacks should his opponent 'fall through' it. If they are launched too high for Ragna to drag down during an air combo, then the Inferno Divider can be a good alternative. Overall, Ragna now requires some knowledge on damage proration to play properly, as combo management is a notable factor to avoid punishes at the end of a combo if damage scaling kicks in too soon. Another thing is that Ragna heavily relies on meter to make his options safe, such as Rapid Cancel Inferno Dividers, so wasting his heat on moves such as his Distortion Drives tends to put Ragna in a risky situation.

Also as of Continuum Shift, Soul Eater also has some interesting values that act like proration if utilized during a combo; in a combo, the first Soul Eater hit has 100% base life steal value of the move used, while the second has 110% of the value, the third with 120%, and the fourth with 130%. Subsequent Soul Eater hits from there onwards scale to 150% life steal per SE hit. This mechanic is often the source of Ragna's penchant for long combos in order to reward himself for increased and consistent life steal.

Continuum Shift II, unfortunately, has not done Ragna any favors. With the nerfing on Belial Edge, which now requires different, more strict timing to get a combo going, and a major portion of his combos being removed, Ragna was unceremoniously kicked off of the S-tier throne. Instead of long combos, Ragna now relies solely on mixup pressure to get in, which is more akin to his Calamity Trigger counterpart, especially with a few new Revolver Action routes. Unfortunately, characters like Makoto, whose offensive potential received a massive buff, now overshadow Ragna in roughly all aspects that define his playstyle. Also, his Belial Edge was severely nerfed in making Ragna back away from his opponent during the startup, preventing better hit confirms at decent ranges and launching them further away along with having it be limited to one use per combo. Coupled with a slight 2C nerf, he seems much weaker overall since much of his combos work mainly in the corner as opposed to mid-screen. Do not let this discourage you, however. Ragna still has his godlike 5B, outprioritizing all attacks that come his way. However, his underused Dead Spike now flings the foe away if it connects on them while they are in midair, thus, Ragna gains a few new ways to perform combos and juggle as well (as well as start a few Dead Spike loops). Also, his Inferno Divider finishers are harder to punish, as Ragna can now perform air actions upon recovering from them.

For those who have adjusted to his changes in Continuum Shift II, there is no need to worry. Continuum Shift Extend has brought him nothing but buffs, such as his Carnage Scissors now being immune to projectiles due to packing some brief startup invincibility (making it a better close quarters tool). Add the numerous other balance changes to the equation, such as the nerfing of every major character that did what he does better, and you have a road paved for Ragna to ascend the tier list once again. The changes mostly involve some moves such as his 6B and 6D having more combo setup potential, and his Hell's Fang proration has improved. It would seem that Ragna is not so different from his Continuum Shift II counterpart, but is now more reasonably balanced from the first Continuum Shift in this regard. He also of course, regains much of his damage and combo potential from the first Continuum Shift as well, making him more rewarding to play. CT= Ragna is a character with easy to use and basic, but effective, bread-and-butter combos. Unlike most main characters, Ragna does not use projectiles for range, and has an aggressive, melee-rushdown oriented playstyle. He is all about forcing his way through the opponent's guard by any means necessary, and bringing the pain with high-damage, long combos. Because of this, he can often experience difficulty with characters that excel at zoning due to lacking projectiles, such as Nu -No.13- and Jin Kisaragi, even with movement options at his disposal.

Like a number of rushdown characters, he works very well with physical range, as his 5B and 5C are very good mid-range punishers that provide solid spacing and tend to be excellent hit-confirms into his combos. Overall, Ragna is more so, your average run-of-the-mill footsies character, as opposed to a pure rushdown type.

Though risky on block, his Hell's Fang is also a punishing gap-closer as well, and his Inferno Divider has the best kind of invincibility there is for a "Dragon Punch-type" reversal. His powerful range nets him a solid and simplistic neutral game with well-rounded normals, and powerful corner carry potential with his long combos.

He also sports a decent mixup game; with him he packs a crossup, overheads to supplement his low attacks, and good Rapid Cancel options (though this makes him very meter reliant). However, he also has a very strong penchant for powerful okizeme/wakeup games, especially off of his sweep or any quick knockdown tool into a Not Over Yet (though something else can replace that move as well for even more confusion).

His Drive is Soul Eater, which steals some of the opponent's life force during certain attacks. As such, a tenacious Ragna is awarded for his offense with precious vitality, while a Ragna without momentum is quick to fall at the hands of his opponent. The said Drive however, is greatly affected by damage scaling, as the life gained back is relevant to how much damage inflicted.

Ragna however, has his weaknesses. First off, at 10,000 health he is amongst one of the lower HP characters, making him more of a 'glass cannon'. And despite his powerful offense, as said before, he is much better at neutral game. Thus, his mixup is easy to telegraph due to his simplistic blockstrings (due to gaps in that area due to a few slow moves on either startup or recovery, especially on block), so he can have trouble enforcing his offense at best. So learning to apply pressure with Ragna is an important aspect, despite it being one of his more weaker areas as one of the weaker-rushdown characters.

Ragna has trouble healing his health in big amounts if he extends his combos too much due to damage scaling as aforementioned, especially since there are times even his Drive has trouble keeping up with his low HP. He also has a lack of reliable air finishers, should Ragna use Gauntlet Hades or Inferno Divider (including its followups) too high in the air the opponent can recover soon and take the chance to counter. As well as having an unsafe 2C, Ragna has quite an amount of weakness to exploit. Regarding Inferno Divider, it's also very punishable in block or whiff despite having amazing invincibility, so a defensive Ragna usually has to be very patient or risk opening up.

Ragna is also a rather basic character, meaning there's not too much to him compared to others, and he offers more risk than reward. His combos are mainly average at best, and require deep understanding of how the damage scaling on both damage and hitstun tend to work. Due to being basic like so, Ragna players often need to work harder than other characters with better specialization, and rely on both fundamentals and unorthodox tactics to open up other characters in the hands of more well-aware players.

Movelists
CF/CP/CS/CT= Normals

Drive

Exceed Accel

Special Attacks

Distortion Drives

Astral Heat

Lost Saga=