Baraka General Discussion

[Espio]

Espio hi, thanks for new video vs Kollector.
Could you please make few points for me clear:
1. This and last set I never saw you doing 122KB. 340 damage or d2 if he has meter.
2. You never buffer lunge into JIK. It works on hit and any block. Its 200 damage. Most profitable tool on my level. Maybe mix it with pokes after JIK good idea?
3. After landing D3 you usually go for B31. Why 14f if it jails and you can do 7f 11+..?
4. You do D4 more often then B4, why? B4 has longer reach, 1f faster and 40 more damage. I thought lunge is good against wakeups and has KB, so why not?
5. I like how good spikes work without using them, so nobody jumps on you. But why dont you use it with strings?
6. I like your reactions on throws teching. Unlike me you can easily confirm f21 and 11 into lunge on block or other specials on hit.
7. Who is your main and why baraka compliments it, what matchups you prefer it over? Thanks.

I'm semi-new to playing Baraka full time so I'm not doing everything. I'm playing really basic neutral but I will try to work it into my game, thank you.

Other things to work on. I am still somewhat newish to these really good strats. I've done it in the lab, but not applied it yet.

Standing 1 is supposed to jail but sometimes people beat it out online somehow so I prefer to do a low/mid attack that people can't duck and you can use this to set up one of his best command grabs with Back 3 lunge.


Down 4 is plus one on block which means it's still your turn after it is blocked and you can tick off down 4 into command grab as well. Sweep is always a top button, but that's why I use down 4.

Work in progress, I recently started doing so with spikes as I am growing/learning the character.

Thank you so much, I'm trying my best .

My main is Jade who is a zoner in the Emerald Defender Variation. I prefer Jade against Erron Black and Liu Kang, but I prefer Baraka against Shang Tsung and Scorpion as an example. I think a strong footsie heavy zoner is a good compliment to Baraka's rush down/footsie based poking style for Bone Picker.

I don't believe this is a 50/50 offline. If you're at max range of Blood Lunge and you're mixing up between f44 and Lunge they can absolutely block/neutral crouch that mix up on reaction. I think off them as footsies tools that complement each other. You condition them to look for one, then once they're looking for that you hit them with the other. If they're looking for both you walk up and hit them with other stuff. They're also super good as a sort of pseudo - punish where your opponents whiffs something or does something that's negative but you can't get a real punish. You use f4 if they're trying to press buttons, you use lunge if they want to "wait their turn" and just block. In general this is where I think lunge is really good. This game doesn't have a bunch of crazy back dashes and armored move and endless pressure - there's lots of situations where your best option is just to block and wait for your turn to move and blood lunge is good for making them scared to wait for their turn. Then when they start pressing button when they shouldn't Baraka is really well equipped to blow that up.

I think probably we're mostly talking about the same type of strategy and I'm just being pedantic, but I just take issue with calling it a 50/50, which should be reserved for true, unreactable guessing situations

I mean this in the most respectful way possible as everyone is entitled to think what they want, but I do not believe anyone is reacting to 17 frame advancing attack versus 12 frame advancing attack. You are adding qualifiers and things like max range, you can be closer than max range and do it too. I have no reason to believe that is true and I haven't heard a compelling argument for it being true. There's too many variables at play for it not to be the case. If you have to guess between block and don't block, that's a 50/50. Command grabs are about conditioning. If you're doing your job correctly nobody is "reacting" to this stuff.

@Espio You play Bone Picker exactly opposite from the way I do. Why don't you ever use Blood Lunge on oki?


Protip: After a Blood Lunge knockdown, do backdash into Blood Lunge. Blows up most wake ups, blows up blocking, and blows up people who see you back dash and decide to press buttons

That's good there's play style variety with the variation. It's not that I never do it, there's just a lot of wake up variables at play so I don't wanna give up ground and the opponent just wakes up and dashes away especially since as Baraka a lot of times I get matched against zoners.

 

[4x4lo8o]

I mean this in the most respectful way possible as everyone is entitled to think what they want, but I do not believe anyone is reacting to 17 frame advancing attack versus 12 frame advancing attack. You are adding qualifiers and things like max range, you can be closer than max range and do it too. I have no reason to believe that is true and I haven't heard a compelling argument for it being true. There's too many variables at play for it not to be the case. If you have to guess between block and don't block, that's a 50/50. Command grabs are about conditioning. If you're doing your job correctly nobody is "reacting" to this stuff.

If you're close enough to hit them with other string or force them to be thinking about other things, I agree it's absolutely not reactable. But that's footsies and condition, not the result of an unreactable 50/50. If you're at a range where only f44 or lunge are gonna hit it's reactable. You can sit there crouch blocking and let up on block if you see lunge. I've got people doing it to me in offline play, if I try to rely solely on f4/lunge "50/50"'s it'll get correctly blocked/neutral crouched far higher than 50% of the time. I'm sure it's not worth anyone's time arguing about though because it's the kind of thing that no one's gonna learn to do unless they have an offline bone picker trainer partner, and nobody has those, but I'm standing firm behind my pedantic declaration that it isn't a 50/50

(Is Jade good? She's one of the other two characters I've been playing and she seems totally nonviable online because of scorpion. Every time I win a match I get counter picked. I just can't handle it and stopped playing the character)

Yep thats how I also try to play. As Rpgz said B4 is also good to mix it with on oki. Its distance is safe from most U3. Do you input BBBF2 or BBF2? But people like to delay a lot, so I usually walk back and wait for delay.

I do bb, bf2. I'm on hitbox though, so I have no idea what the best input option is on a pad or stick. You also gotta watch their meter when doing this. If they have defensive meter but not offensive meter they're more likely to roll or delay get up. You also just gotta learn people's habits. Some people never wake up, some people never roll. Some people will always delay get up. There's options to deal with all of that, although I haven't optimized most of them yet. I feel like at somepoint that'd be a good subject for it's own thread or guide.

It's hard to hit tech rolls towards you with Blood Lunge, which is frustrating. You have to time the Lunge perfect or they go under you. It's more lenient if they roll away. It makes the KB harder to get

 

[4x4lo8o]

How does everyone get punished for blocked foward 4 .I get thrown 80 percent of the time.Is foward 4 chop chop safe and am I doing foward 44 instead!

You shouldn't be getting "punished" for a blocked f4, you're not negative enough. If you're getting thrown a lot I would try neutral jumping. Just hold up right after f4 then do a jump 4 or jump 1 as you land. That should blow them up if they go for a throw. You could also try neutral crouching

I guess for cross up kick not cornered 112+lunge. And jump to cornered opponent can be up to four D1 and then 112+lunge.
What do you mean mash grab? after spikes? really inputing bf2 many times, it works?
I have another issue, online I connect f44KB+grab only 50%, offline like all 100%. Maybe mashing also helps here))

In the corner after a jump kick I usually try to do 4~spikes, d1, 112~lunge. It's pretty hard online.

Yeah, I mean inputting it multiple times. It kinda works I guess? Not as well in this game as in other NRS games. It might just be a bad habit that is actually hurting.

For some reason f44KB~grab is really hard online for me too. It seems like you have to do it really late, which seems weird. I've been inputting it twice. Once during the last part of the animation where it zooms in on the foot and once right as it comes out of the animation into the normal game-play view and I feel like that's giving me pretty good results.

 

[Espio]

If you're close enough to hit them with other string or force them to be thinking about other things, I agree it's absolutely not reactable. But that's footsies and condition, not the result of an unreactable 50/50. If you're at a range where only f44 or lunge are gonna hit it's reactable. You can sit there crouch blocking and let up on block if you see lunge. I've got people doing it to me in offline play, if I try to rely solely on f4/lunge "50/50"'s it'll get correctly blocked/neutral crouched far higher than 50% of the time. I'm sure it's not worth anyone's time arguing about though because it's the kind of thing that no one's gonna learn to do unless they have an offline bone picker trainer partner, and nobody has those, but I'm standing firm behind my pedantic declaration that it isn't a 50/50

(Is Jade good? She's one of the other two characters I've been playing and she seems totally nonviable online because of scorpion. Every time I win a match I get counter picked. I just can't handle it and stopped playing the character)

I really wouldn't classify her as good contrary to what people who refuse to block or respect frames say. She has easy counterpicks in Shang and Scorpion who don't even have to truly know the Jade mu, you just have to do shit and it works out. Wazminator just dropped her for even offline play and is looking into Cetrion, Shang and Cassie. I dunno, she doesn't strike me as a solo main character. Just waiting on Nightwolf and Sindel at this point.

 

[kostikla]

Hi there! Nice Baraka, I'm trying to learn him now too. One thing I noticed at 1:39 and 2:22 is that you didn't hit confirm the chop chop - or that was on purpose? Nice flawless btw And I didn't see you trying to push for the gutted KB once you hit him with the amplified gutted, was that on purpose too? Slick gameplay anyway!

 

[PreNerf_]

More damage than f4 into chop chop?

Yea also in the corner off a jumpkick conversion do standing 4 into 112 gutted and catch them with standing 4 gutted again for kb, or end in chopchop.

 

[kostikla]

Yea also in the corner off a jumpkick conversion do standing 4 into 112 gutted and catch them with standing 4 gutted again for kb, or end in chopchop.

It looks like you can squeeze some d1’s in there as well? At least after the standing 4 and before 112

 

[PreNerf_]

Possibly, I know you can jumpkick into d1 then 112 into gutted or just jumpkick into standin1 112 gutted, but standing four gets the most damage. If you do a wake-up universal is into 122 you can get that kb, into 1,112 gutted, then s4 gutted kb and after the bleed if i remember it correctly it's either 61% or 63% after bleed. Definite round ender if they are in the corner already..... I was making him until Shang came out and have been wanting to start using him again, but my brothers shang is just as amazing as mine and it's hard to get something going with baraka against him for practice. Main thing to practice with baraka is set practice so to block random combo, and d3 not only look for the animation on hit but listen to the sound, his d3 jails into his 122 and 112. So then if they block the 122 you can hit confirm into enhanced Sparks, but if they don't block it hit confirm into gutted. If the always block, then d3 twice. Listen for the sound.

 

[PreNerf_]

Possibly, I know you can jumpkick into d1 then 112 into gutted or just jumpkick into standin1 112 gutted, but standing four gets the most damage. If you do a wake-up universal is into 122 you can get that kb, into 1,112 gutted, then s4 gutted kb and after the bleed if i remember it correctly it's either 61% or 63% after bleed. Definite round ender if they are in the corner already..... I was making him until Shang came out and have been wanting to start using him again, but my brothers shang is just as amazing as mine and it's hard to get something going with baraka against him for practice. Main thing to practice with baraka is set practice so to block random combo, and d3 not only look for the animation on hit but listen to the sound, his d3 jails into his 122 and 112. So then if they block the 122 you can hit confirm into enhanced Sparks, but if they don't block it hit confirm into gutted. If the always block, then d3 twice. Listen for the sound.

Damn phones meant universal OS,112 gutted and I was maining him before shang came out...

 

[Chi-khan]

Good shit dude! I'd have to see more of your gameplay to give you a more in depth critique but from what I saw, I'd say optimize your combo damage(which has been pointed out), hit confirm gutted off of b32, and chill with jumping on wakeup. Also, you can inturrupt Liu kangs f4 string with 112~gutted for a full combo. Inturrupt between the penultimate and last hit of the string. Hope that helps!

 

[denuke]

In the corner after a jump kick I usually try to do 4~spikes, d1, 112~lunge. It's pretty hard online.

Oh thats hard to do, and for me just f4+spikes+.. and 112+spikes+.. also hard to catch, only b31+ feels easy... Btw do you or someone else use offline input delay option in practice mode to simulate online (should be 3 frames delay, right)?

Yeah, I mean inputting it multiple times. It kinda works I guess? Not as well in this game as in other NRS games. It might just be a bad habit that is actually hurting.
For some reason f44KB~grab is really hard online for me too. It seems like you have to do it really late, which seems weird. I've been inputting it twice. Once during the last part of the animation where it zooms in on the foot and once right as it comes out of the animation into the normal game-play view and I feel like that's giving me pretty good results.

Since I recently started mashing lunge on KB screen it works every time (inputing 3-5 bf2). Guess it works with any char. So thanks for that)) Feels a bit stupid but better than going in tilt.
And yea lunge and forward roll is frustrating, IDK if you can even time it, never happened for me. Wasn't it designed for rolls if KB is present? But good news its kinda weird to do the f roll on mid distance. I wonder what do you guys think is counter to it?
With their meter I like to dash back and wait for some action first and then react or do random: a) spikes or d2 on jump, b) B2, c) lunge, d) B4 my favourite, e)f4 or f21 on whiff, d) JIK. All are good options if you ask me. And I def don't think they should risk with b roll at all against bone picker. Without meter I like b31 and grab. His short jump attacks seems solid too. Unfortunately his neutral high jump kick(U3) has low reach.

 

[kostikla]

Possibly, I know you can jumpkick into d1 then 112 into gutted or just jumpkick into standin1 112 gutted, but standing four gets the most damage. If you do a wake-up universal is into 122 you can get that kb, into 1,112 gutted, then s4 gutted kb and after the bleed if i remember it correctly it's either 61% or 63% after bleed. Definite round ender if they are in the corner already..... I was making him until Shang came out and have been wanting to start using him again, but my brothers shang is just as amazing as mine and it's hard to get something going with baraka against him for practice. Main thing to practice with baraka is set practice so to block random combo, and d3 not only look for the animation on hit but listen to the sound, his d3 jails into his 122 and 112. So then if they block the 122 you can hit confirm into enhanced Sparks, but if they don't block it hit confirm into gutted. If the always block, then d3 twice. Listen for the sound.

I’ve just tested this out and in the corner there’s these two:

jik, d1, d1, d1, d1, 112, bf4 ex, 4, bf4 KB
112, bf4 ex, jik, d1, d1, 112, bf4 KB

Both do about 445 and around 85 ticks, so 530 total

 

[PreNerf_]

I’ve just tested this out and in the corner there’s these two:

jik, d1, d1, d1, d1, 112, bf4 ex, 4, bf4 KB
112, bf4 ex, jik, d1, d1, 112, bf4 KB

Both do about 445 and around 85 ticks, so 530 total

I'm at my exes house right now with my kids for a few days so I can't test it out, but I remember one that I did in the corner being 63% with the bleed. When I get home I'll figure it out and give it to you guys. The os is legit though. Never would have figured it out without shaolins post on universal OS. You can litterally do the kb combo if they try to roll out or it techs the wakeup throw, blocks the wakeup u3 and u2

 

[Blade4693]

So after not playing him a ton since the beta I have been polishing up my Baraka and I am wondering what are you guys doing to open people up with Marauder? I sometimes don't finish the full low starter string and go for grabs, some short hop overheads etc. but it seems like cacthing people with his low starter into gutted is pretty tough these days.

 

[_smash_]

So after not playing him a ton since the beta I have been polishing up my Baraka and I am wondering what are you guys doing to open people up with Marauder? I sometimes don't finish the full low starter string and go for grabs, some short hop overheads etc. but it seems like cacthing people with his low starter into gutted is pretty tough these days.

F4, b4, and b2 to whiff punish. To open people up 112 staggers are good. Off of the top of my head 1 throw, 11 throw, 112, 112 blade spark ( unsafe) are the layers that you can add in the hit/throw mixup this string grants. You can also go for b32 after 11 as b3 low crushes some pokes (correct me if I'm wrong). You can also try to catch people with 122 after a 11 stagger if you have conditioned them well, they might try to poke late on reaction and you could catch a kb.

Also people hold the whole f212 string so occasionally you can toss out raw f2 into throw or cancel f21 into blade sparks to disrupt flawless block attempts.

F4 is plus on block at max range so you can contest with d3 after which jails into the 112 string, furthering your mix ups. On top of that you can add in throws after raw f4 if they start respecting the follow up d3. Hope this helps. I'm sure some other members have more ways to open people up as well.

 

[PreNerf_]

O

Possibly, I know you can jumpkick into d1 then 112 into gutted or just jumpkick into standin1 112 gutted, but standing four gets the most damage. If you do a wake-up universal is into 122 you can get that kb, into 1,112 gutted, then s4 gutted kb and after the bleed if i remember it correctly it's either 61% or 63% after bleed. Definite round ender if they are in the corner already..... I was making him until Shang came out and have been wanting to start using him again, but my brothers shang is just as amazing as mine and it's hard to get something going with baraka against him for practice. Main thing to practice with baraka is set practice so to block random combo, and d3 not only look for the animation on hit but listen to the sound, his d3 jails into his 122 and 112. So then if they block the 122 you can hit confirm into enhanced Sparks, but if they don't block it hit confirm into gutted. If the always block, then d3 twice. Listen for the sound.

ok so the damage I wrote down was misleading.... The jk in corner into standing 4 then 112 bf4 enh, standing 4 bf 4 kb ,isn't 63% damage it's 48% plus 10% bleed so it's 58% I must have been doing it with shang tsung to get the 63 somehow or maybe fb on the end with shang tsung cause he has a damage boost.

 

[Red Hood MKX]

I recently realized that someone trying to flawless block 112 or f212 will also basically option select a tick throw of those strings. I'm pretty unhappy about it, it's a really strong option against a mix up I was relying on a lot. I haven't figured out the best way to deal with it yet

I found some good tech here if you do spikes to cover the gap that will blow up people trying to flawless block f21. spikes makes this string alot more deadly in bone picker.

 

[ismael4790]

I found some good tech here if you do spikes to cover the gap that will blow up people trying to flawless block f21. spikes makes this string alot more deadly in bone picker.

All options from f21 can be covered with same motion, including f21 spikes. It's quite a tight window to cover them all, but it's there. People will still get caught though.

 

[4x4lo8o]

So if you flawless block 112 while crouching it always has a bunch of pushback and the flawless block attack will miss, unless it's Geras or someone else with a forward advancing u2 or u3. I gotta test it some more, but this means you can't flawless block punish 112 and get out of the command grab with the same motion. So that option select wasn't quite as good as I thought. They can still flawless block/neutral crouch the grab if they want to be safe, but if they want the flawlessblock punish they have to stand up and expose themselves to the grab. Also I think the pushback also always happens in the corner, so 112 is totally corner safe


Can Marauder combo after a deep jump kick? I know Bone Picker can almost always land a lunge so this isn't as useful for him but after a deep enough jump in kick on hit you can cancel into flag and actually still have a few frames of advantage. In Bone Picker you've got to give up 100 points of damage from lunge to do it and the damage buff probably isn't going to make up for it, but in Marauder if you can't combo anyway it's probably useful

 

[RoboCop]

So after not playing him a ton since the beta I have been polishing up my Baraka and I am wondering what are you guys doing to open people up with Marauder? I sometimes don't finish the full low starter string and go for grabs, some short hop overheads etc. but it seems like cacthing people with his low starter into gutted is pretty tough these days.

I’ve found staggering b3 into b31 to be effective, especially if you’ve already caught them with b3-throw a few times. b3-d/f1 or b3-d1~db3 can also catch people trying to poke out of the stagger.

 

[4x4lo8o]

I have to do more testing because characters have different rolls but Bone Picker can prevent most characters from rolling out of the corner while also safely stuffing anything other than some u3's using d4

 

[ManiacFGC]

I've been playing a lot of Bone Picker recently and I'm definitely starting to see this variation's viability. Like he has so many options in the neutral and nullifies jumping almost all together. Also the fact that his spikes are sometimes plus? I gotta look into that.

 

[Somebuddy]

 

[BeastOfManila]

re f4 and b4

iirc, f4 is 12 frames and b4 is 14. both are -2 on block. I know which one is the mid and the low and both can catch neutral duckers.

question is: when are the best times for either?

 

[4x4lo8o]

I like to use b4 when I think they're trying to back up. I also like to use it to catch people who are jumping in and landing at the range - sometimes they'll throw out a jump kick or something and beat f4 but b4 seems to catch them pretty well.

F4 I usually use when I'm looking for a kounter hit or I think they're going try to move into my space. It's also a better whiff punisher in most situations since you can go into a combo from it. f44 also has it own uses at longer ranges

Also gotta consider that f44 puts them full screen while b4 puts them at your feet and gives you decent bit of hit advantage to go for oki. Both are useful depending on the mu and specific situation