It took me quite a while, but lately Nobushi has started to work for me even against better opponents. I totally rely on her dash cancels right now. Besides punishing parried moves with light, heavy / light, kick / light, heavy (cancel), gb is a pretty reliable way to do damage.
Generally I think that running away would become a severe problem if a ranked mode was added. The game doesn't prevent you from running around the map all day. There should be something like "predator mode" that increases your speed by 20%, if you are following a 'targetable' enemy. Else a ranked mode would be kinda pointless.
Right now it is way too easy to wait for the last health bar to fill. Chars like the conqueror or the LB have a hard time finishing opponents off because of this.