Ragna the Bloodedge/Move List

Health: 10,000 Movement: 1 Double Jump/Airdash, Run-type Dash

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 ν-No.13- and Jin Kisaragi, even with movement options at his disposal.

He is certainly not without range, however. Utilizing his amazing 5B and 5C, Ragna has all the tools he needs to catch his opponent out and then immediately close the distance with Hell's Fang. Once Ragna gets in close quarters, his damage potential increases considerably, and even becomes borderline devastating if he enters his powered up state, Blood Kain, but not without its risks. Ragna's health is one of the lowest of the cast, at only 10,000, which is done to balance his high-damage output. In short, he's a "glass cannon" character. This is compensated for by his unique Drive ability, 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.

He also sports a good mixup game, with him packs a crossup, overheads to supplement his low attacks, and good Rapid Cancel options (though this makes him very meter reliant). He also has very powerful combo ability in the corner not unlike most glass cannons as well, especially combo-heavy ones.

Ragna has trouble healing his health in big amounts if he extends his combos too much due to damage scaling as aforementioned, and 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.

Despite all of this, Ragna is actually best at maintaining a neutral game with his footsies; his range is meant to be used against foes' actions to start a massively damaging combo on them, and his pressure and mixup is only mediocre compared to most characters. What makes Ragna very dangerous is if he is in the hands of a skilled and intelligent player, being able to combo off of Ragna's poking tools, and learning how to properly space himself from his opponent to capitalize off their mistimed movements. However, he also has a very strong penchant for powerful okizeme/wakeup games, especially off of his sweep into a Not Over Yet and involving other moves as well. Regardless, one should have a good sense of yomi (reading) to often play Ragna unconventionally, but with the right mindset this seems to be little of a problem. This is especially true with his subpar pressure game, due to the number of unsafe punishable and disrespectable moves and attack chains he has.

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. 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. 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. 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.

Chronophantasma gives him a few new touches such as a ground sliding 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 the amount of moves to be chained into, 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 damage in proration, 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.

His 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.

Movelists
CP/CS/CT= Normals

Drive

Special Attacks

Distortion Drives

Astral Heat

Lost Saga=