I actually main shinobi and I found this does work against me. 1. Dodge the kick. Side dodge it because the kick does have a good track. If you mess up the timing he will land it. Dodge when you see the orange particles show up. From there you can punish him. 2. Counter the range attacks. You literally only need to block the ranger attacks. 9/10 times he is doing it from far away so you won't be able to reach him, so there is no point risking the party. The guard break is harder to counter. Watch the sickle as it comes in. Wait for it to hit you and quickly counter it. 3. Wait for him to make a mistake. This works on lower skilled opponents mostly. Their health bar is low. Wait for a good moment to punish him. 4. Do not use to many heavies. A good shinobi will deflect and light for big damage. His parry counter is ok as well. Following these steps will usually get in his head as he/she tries to figure out what to do or he/she will just rage and screw up. Also note he gets a free heavy and a light off of a normal guard break, do make sure you can counter that. Finally, watch the sickle rain combo. He can cancel it mid-way into a backflip (however most people don't know he can do this). And he can backflip after the combo is over as well. That backflip can be chained into other ranged attacks or a double dodge (but you have to go through the full recovery before doing it).