new player playing baiken

[Guilty Proxy]

so im new to the game and playing baiken i wanted to no if she was a good starter character i find it hard to get in close to people to do my combos

[Bootleg Megaboss]

She's quite advanced. You can use her command run or chain to close the gap between opponents, but always have a plan after those, especially if your opponent is playing defensively.

On the other hand, Baiken has amazing Defence due to her Azami special. If you master that, you can easily turn a match in your favor and force opponents to respect your attacks.

Keep in mind, she has horrible health and Stun Resistance, although her health got slightly increased in the new patch.

[Don Bone]

The best starter characters to get a feel of the game's mechanics would be Sol & Ky. With Sol focusing on the pressure & rushdown type while Ky focuses on the consistency & setup type. There are other basic characters each focusing on their archetypes too, like Potemkin as a classic grappler etc. etc. While most of the other characters are a mix of types & playstyle.

If you want to play her still.. She's not the hardest nor the easiest to start with. But if you start with her, you'd have a different idea on how the game works as compared to if you start with Sol or Ky, for example.

On that, Baiken is a mix of unique defensive & offensive options, which is where she specializes at. That said, you can't get in with her the same way most other characters. Rather than running in & doing pressure, most of the time it's best for her to mind spacing, your attacks' speed vs the opponents' & what she can do within that.

Here's a general laydown on her neutrals.

- Make use of tatami & the various ways to do it to cover your space.
- Bait opponents to eat your hook, usually by baiting them to move in/attack within the hook's range, but safe enough that the attack would miss you/won't hit you before the hook hits them
- Bait opponents into attacking mid/high at range & suzuran that into your combo (especially effective vs Faust's hook scalpel as you can do the suzuran followup & it'd hit despite being a fullscreen away from Faust)
- Block their pressure & Azami their high-commitment pressure reset (e.g. Sol ending blockstring with fafnir/bandit bringer)

That's mostly playing defensive however. On offense, get used to cancelling gattlings into instant suzuran w/ followup where it works. Do a blockstring into suzuran & throw, or blockstring into hook & back into blockstring for a pretty reliable pressure reset.

It's also worth practicing your counterhit combos as that's where she excels at. As you will get it pretty frequent considering your azami/suzuran followup, when timed right, can send your opponent into counterhit state. Naturally doing blockstring with her can also easily crank up your opponent's RISC bar (the pink bar below the life bar), which when it's over 50% full & you manage to score a hit in, it'd register as a counterhit; putting your opponent in extra hitstun, opening new possibilities in combo routes.

[Don Bone]

Balance wise, she's kinda broken in a bad way atm. Azami from blockstring is very risky with little window to do especially in online play. Her anti-air hook is broken if you catch the opponent at the lowest point of their jump, etc. etc. that she's easily the lowest tier character in the current version.

In the upcoming patch that'd hit in a week or two probably, she's got mad buffs however. Including the fixed blockstring azami window.

You can check out her buffs from the patchnote here, under the Baiken section: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s296/sh/f44307c3-6046-42f6-8b68-e5976b520f1a/14cdc7db9aafd0045e392847437e6a8f

In short, she got tougher (gonna be as tough as May. As is she has the 3rd lowest defense) & her tools fixed for more reliability. Including improved attack hitbox, timing & speed in general. They also fix the air hook bug so that no matter what height you catch your opponent with, the hook will always yield the same result.

That aside, she'd play relatively the same, only better & with more reliability & consistency. So if you like playing her, might as well get used to her starting now as the patch isn't too far off.