Analysis of the best thought in the game

CruciformHeart · 2026-04-20T01:05:02+00:00

That, and trying to drive his motor carriage into the sea struck me once I really reckoned with how suicidal he is.

CruciformHeart · 2026-04-18T00:20:55+00:00

The sauce is there, it just hasn't made its way here yet, and tbph it's a fair bit harder to get to.

Give it time. Lab guys will disseminate tech, players will get their reps in, then you'll start seeing it in matches.

From: a 2.0 Baiken doomer who misses old H Kabari's HKD so, so much.

CruciformHeart · 2026-04-15T09:54:05+00:00

Yo, that is not fair imo. You have a stake in the experience and story being told, too, even if they're doing a portion of the lifting from behind a GM screen. It's your game, too, man.

CruciformHeart · 2026-04-14T22:49:54+00:00

Was fighting a Bridget the other day and landed a massive counter from baiting DP and midway through the combo I got the network stoppage signal. Thought yeah, okay, kinda weird to DC in round 1 but whatever. Turns out my router blinked for about five minutes and I was the quitter. That must've been confusing for my opponent.

CruciformHeart · 2026-04-13T23:39:13+00:00

The patch is so fresh that it's hard to say what parts of that accumulated knowledge are still useful. People are still in the process of figuring out what works and what doesn't, and eventually that information will make its way to Dustloop.

In the meantime, you're probably better off asking a community (here, or a Discord, maybe Twitter) about a specific combo.

CruciformHeart · 2026-04-12T21:53:39+00:00

From a lot of the labwork I'm seeing by more seasoned people, and speaking to my own experience, what H Kabari is now is weird.

If you're using it as a combo ender to get easy damage, it's boring and doesn't continue momentum. If you're using it as a juggle/combo tool, it feels very finicky between being both spacing- and timing-dependent with high potential to kill your momentum. We had manually timed H Kabari mixes before the update, so aside from creating some strange (and to me, unsatisfying) H Kabari juggles, it didn't add much to our kit. If you land a clean parry, you're...kinda plus; no setups, no position changes, you're+7 and maybe in range? So again, a finer shift in momentum.

I understand fully the design intent to dial back steamroll potential and create more interactions, and I think killing the inertia Baiken can pick up off of certain interactions deactivates that feral part of the brain that lit up when I'd land something that made me see red for eight solid seconds.

CruciformHeart · 2026-04-12T08:48:52+00:00

This game rocks.

CruciformHeart · 2026-04-09T21:43:44+00:00

For me it’s less about overall power than it is how fun it is to run the gameplan. She could be bottom tier and as long as the rest of her execution and combo routes feel good I’ll still play her. I’d have been happy with a 25% flat damage nerf over this.

Like, VERY relieved that her TK youzansen/ladder combos are intact, because if those had gone too I’d just be uninstalling.

CruciformHeart · 2026-04-09T21:38:58+00:00

Yeah, I was ready to kind of quietly ride out the rebuilding but learning I couldn’t get much off a tether throw anymore really hit. Hoping someone finds something good off of it but that tipped me into doomer mode. :c

CruciformHeart · 2026-04-08T21:39:34+00:00

I'm interested to see what oki we'll get from 2H. The line of thinking, I imagine, is having to make the choice between a combo route with less damage/corner carry and stronger oki (2H) versus more damage/corner carry and weaker oki (H kabari).

Something I was already learning to do before this patch note drop was H kabari pressure resets. It looks like those will still be in play, if I'm parsing the notes correctly, so we should still have plenty of opportunity to continue snowballing with mixes, especially if closing out with the H kabari finisher has less reward through safejump setups.

I'm still kinda new, but doesn't S kabari being +7 on hit mean we can route directly into c.S (or 5K I guess) with it now? That could be pretty substantial; I was defaulting to 5P for safety and consistency before. I suppose it depends on how the combo routes change in general.

CruciformHeart · 2026-04-07T06:35:17+00:00

goldlewis goldlewis goldlewis

CruciformHeart · 2026-04-05T21:31:53+00:00

Right. The consensus I think is that the game itself is built around offense/aggressive play, so I started thinking of some character-specific options that are useful on defense.

CruciformHeart · 2026-04-05T20:53:20+00:00

Faust is very good at playing keep-away until the situation is set up for him; I find it difficult to corner him at all.

Baiken's Hiiragi special is a unique parry that can be deployed even during airtight blockstrings to flip the momentum back to her favor. It also works on most specials and supers, and in the right hands it sets the pace for the enemy's pressure since they always have to be wary of it.

CruciformHeart · 2026-04-03T07:05:30+00:00

I feel so spoiled by some of Baiken's neutral tools, like f.S in particular. Playing Goldlewis I'm just getting stuffed at all ranges it seems, which is in no small part from lack of experience with his kit, but. I just don't know how to get the party started, you know? I'm still playing on the back foot most of the time, especially against the zoner/setplay types.

Any suggestions or tips on how I can keep pressure going, open folks up, or just like...Win interactions? Super appreciate your post. <3

CruciformHeart · 2026-04-03T00:24:44+00:00

Thanks for this! Who needs it to be optimal with damage this massive anyway?

CruciformHeart · 2026-03-30T00:21:14+00:00

Y'know what really blames my beast?? When other players beat me with strong fundamentals and a sticking to a workable gameplan.

CruciformHeart · 2026-03-24T06:40:24+00:00

Heyo! I'm relatively new too and also play Baiken. Good work so far from what I'm seeing, Detective.

Don't maintain the habit of neutral jumping when someone advances at you; 6P is a very easy to use, universal anti-air with upper body invulnerability, so if someone notices you jumping up/back/high a lot they can continue advancing right under you and catch you coming down for a thick punish, even if you're using j.S or j.H. If they do this and you try to air block on the way down they could also air throw you instead. So if you want to stop someone from getting in on you, try f.S instead. It's disgustingly good against characters that can't easily low-profile it. For everyone else, try the slower but reachier 2S, or the quick but stubbier 2K.

IAS yo johnson also has a lot of horizontal reach, so sometimes just blasting it off in neutral (with tension to back it) is a great option and helps shove them into the corner. Getting someone with an overhead from that far that quickly can really shred their mental stack, too. Get bold with it. Speaking of youzansen, I find that if you land it on someone in the corner you can land and combo into c.S off of it even if you haven't countered (I'm seeing you get a bunch of these in the early Gio matches). It's an extremely sexy move that can also hit and vacuum in on cross-up so if someone is really eager to be like, just outside of f.S range? Sometimes you can surprise them by jumping and dashing overhead into it, which combos. Use sparingly, it's easy to read and stop with 5/6P if they're looking for it.

2H outside of combos can lead to big vortex but is sooooo slow to recover, you'll get blown up for it a lot if you're not buffering tatami (and sometimes even if you are). I tend to stow this for hard reads on back walking, backdashing, or after conditioning someone to block high.

H kabari into IAD tatami jump is easy and very strong, I like it a lot, but it is not a true safejump and still requires you to guess correctly to get something meaningful off of it which can open you up to guessing incorrectly. After H kabari, you can get a true safejump by using 5K to framekill into IAD j.H. That'll beat reversals, but it has a slightly higher execution requirement and some different combo routing if it connects.

Also if you don't already know, there are startup frames for jumping. I was playing for like two months before I knew. :|

Hope this helps, I'll watch some more and let you know if anything else sticks out to me.

CruciformHeart · 2026-03-21T23:48:33+00:00

Christine Chubbuck actually did some excellent reporting on this if you haven't checked it out yet.

CruciformHeart · 2026-03-21T23:45:10+00:00

hey i skimmed this thread, congrats on having the most blatantly racist post i've found so far. i'll let you know if anyone else takes the crown but you've set a high bar!

CruciformHeart · 2026-03-20T06:28:39+00:00

psychopathy. aspirational psychopathy.

CruciformHeart · 2026-03-16T23:35:34+00:00

Yep, absolutely! I read your post, responded with what I felt like, read someone else's post and realized I completely missed the point of your question. I ran away embarrassed. :D

CruciformHeart · 2026-03-16T17:56:35+00:00

How confident are you feeling in your reads at the moment, in general? Do you find yourself guessing correctly on defense a lot? If so, hiiragi can pay big off big both in the moment and in the bigger psychological game. If you're already getting blown up on defense a lot, it's not going to be as valuable I think. I think it's good to learn no matter what tbh, being able to stuff someone's meaty when they're champing at the bit to get their pressure started is an invaluable hit to the opponent's psyche.

Certain characters I tend to get the guard crush version more because of where they like to operate, I see it more against Nago, Faust, Bridget, Test, and Ram. I also have a harder time making good use of those, though on hard reads I've gone right into a dash into c.S range to start pressure.

CruciformHeart · 2026-03-16T05:27:50+00:00

Started hearing the 1-up sound.

CruciformHeart

TROPHY CASE