Okay, first of all, airdashing at v-13 is a gamble and it’s never in your favor. Just don’t do it.
I play Ragna, and I can tell you that Ragna has the least amount of ways around v-13’s garbage. Any strat to get in that I can apply with Ragna, I can apply with other characters to (mostly) greater effects.
When you IAD in, you can’t block, so don’t do it unless you KNOW. And if you KNOW, the v-13 player is doing it wrong, as she’s not playing as safely as she could be. Her 2C puts her in low profile (evasive), has a great hitbox above her, and has excellent damage scaling. It also forces you to barrier if you plan on empty jumping at her in that area (bad). So, you try to double-jump at the last second and bait the 2C and you eat…her 2D instead, which hits you where you plan on double jumping. That’s fine actually, because you can block that attack and not worry about using barrier. This lets you IB attacks and gain meter (3 clicks for every IB) faster than she is for poking you (1 click for every 2 swords). Obviously some characters (like Ragna) have uses for having meter in this matchup, but others (like Tager) do not.
Next is her 5D. You can’t block this shit on reaction if you’re standing in the spot you need to be in order to play jump guessing games with her. By conceding your position to one where you can more easily block this move on reaction (which is further away), you put yourself into a mini-game where you get to practice IB (which is important, I’ll explain). In the mini-game, v-13 players like to put you into her “mixups”. Her 4D hits as an overhead, and her back pinwheel hits low. If you IB 5D and then jump block, you avoid standing there and taking this guessing game while you continue to build meter. If you want to advance at her within her 5D range, you either normal jump over where the 5D will appear and barrier/IB on the way down, or you do a dashing barrier (dash brake) while on the ground. By dash braking, the risk of you running into a random 5D goes down, but not completely away.
5DD into 4D is interruptable if you IB the second hit of 5DD. Ragna gets a free super for doing this, but I’m not sure what other characters get. Tager gets Sledge I believe, or maybe his fireball (which nullifies projectiles anyway). It’s an important string to learn how to IB and find a way through, otherwise v-13 can just keep abusing this while you get pounded.
She can dash cancel her 6C on block and actually be up frames. However, the frame advantage is based on the distance from the opponent she performed the dash cancel. Since she can poke with it at max distance and immediately DC and go into a throw (with a normal break window, meaning you were not in blockstun), her frame advantage is minimal. If you predict a DC forward, be ready to recognize the distance she performed it at and be ready to break a throw or interrupt her with your best poke if she tries to attack out of the dash. Frames are extremely important in this game (more than SF4), so do your research.
Allen - I challenge you to beat my Ragna. I’m all over this game, I’m down to play whenever you are, just don’t quit if you get beaten too badly =). What are you using as your base for interpreting your skill level anyway? What makes you say you’re so sick?
Ramen - Actually she has a lot of interesting design concepts as a character. Sadly, her strategy isn’t very interesting and is overly brain-dead and scrub friendly to perform. There are counters to the scrubby strategies, but they take more effect than they should to get around, which is why people complain. As far as going to dustloop is concerned, well, remind me to never give you any strats or help since you should be good to go on your own! To answer your question; no, there isn’t a lot there if you don’t like pressing D. Maybe you’d feel better if different swords were assigned to different buttons? You play the Snot Monster though, so I could see how v-13 is the aesthetic opposite to something like that.
I mean… how can thouther win in this game?.. well, yjdk…lol