Bleeding Edge

Surrtan

After some thought, and a lot of constructive feedback from the community, I came to the conclusion that the last guide had left many aspects of the game without doing them justice. Therefore I've decided to come up with more guides to help players both new and old to hopefully undestand the game better.
This installment of the Misfit's guide will attempt to dive a little deeper into mechanical concepts of the game. However, I ask of you that you bare in mind that a written guide may only serve as a starting point with basic instructions. I can't teach you how to perform sick plays nor can I offer you the tools with which you can do so, all a guide can do is prepare you enough so you'd be ready to come up with the rest on your own. With that being said, lets get started.

This guide will divide the idea of mechanics into the following concepts/sub-units:

Mechanics revolving around basic attacks
Game sense involving usage of stamina
The mechanic of parrying
Some tips about landing individual fighter abilities

Mechanics revolving around basic attacks (does not apply on ranged fighters):

Most if not all fights, come down to who is better at performing their basic attacks. Mashing the attack button is in most cases ill advised because it will result in your fighter performing their default chain of basic attacks in the default speed that their kit was designed with. This means that your opponent can now learn the default chains of fighters, and end up parrying your attacks with ease. To counter this we depend on mix ups and/or emote cancelling.
Mixing up your attacks means to use an ability somewhere in your chain of basic attacks. The most common example is Daemon throwing a shuriken after 3 or 4 basic attacks; this resets your combo, and if your opponent is anticipating the final attack of your default chain, they will instead be met with a shuriken followed by the 1st attack of the chain followed by the rest of the combo resulting in massive damage that could erase a Nidhöggr's hp bar depending on your mod build.
Emote cancelling means to press the emote button to cancel your chain of attacks. Again this will reset your basic attack chain, and if your opponent is waiting for a certain attack in the chain that they know how to parry, they'll be waiting for a long time since you are basically performing the 1st or 2nd attack over and over and over again.
The principle is to find the perfect frame in which an emote input will cancel your attack animation, and pressing the attack button in very quick succession to the emote input. Or if you want to play mind games with your opponent; actually emote in the midst of kicking their ass.
Joreyo Sensei, the king of mechanics, has a useful video regarding emote cancelling that you may check out if you'd like: Emote cancelling by Joreyo

Game sense involving usage of stamina (does not apply on tanks other than Bastardo):

Right next to your hp, one of the most important things that you should make it a habit to keep an eye on; is stamina. The game is designed so that ranged fighters have 2 bars of stamina while melee fighters have 3. Evading or dashing costs you 1 stamina bar, and parrying successfully will restore half a stamina bar, moving on.
A mistake that many players do is that they waste their stamina by using it to close up distance with their opponent (without a plan) or evading the small poking attacks and being left with no stamina to dodge more dangerous abilities like a Boomitar or a Cage. A general advise is to keep your last stamina bar available for emergency situations, until you're confident in your game sense enough to decide when to use your stamina on your own.
While playing ranged fighters you want to be extra careful about using your stamina. Ideally when evading you want to create an opportunity to actually get away, for example by placing a firewall or jumping to safety.

The mechanic of parrying (does not apply on tanks other than Bastardo):

Parrying is easily the scariest concept for new players, but when they pull it off once or twice they being to realize that it's actually extremely simple with little to no risk to go with it.
In order to perform a parry, you have to press the evade button (once) during the few frames that the enemy attack is supposed to connect with you, meaning after the attack animation has begun, and I would advise against trying to anticipate the attack, because your opponent could be mixing up their attacks and you would just fail the parry. And make sure that you are not mashing the parry button, because the failed parry animation does not get cancelled, and instead you will just spend more time standing idly and getting hit.
To learn to parry I suggest that you practice against a Nidhöggr, a Bastardo, or a Buttercup because they have slow attack animations, and learn to parry the rest by getting your ass kicked in battle (at least for a while).

Some ability tips for individual fighters:

In this part of the guide I want to only make a few remarks on fighter abilities.
Bleeding Edge uses auto aim/lock and is often (wrongfully) mocked because of that. In reality I have probably not seen a game in which people miss their abilities more than BE, and it directly results in them losing team fights that they should have won. Thus I want to call attention to some abilities that miss way too often, and how to rectify that. Ideally people would practice their abilities in the dojo, but it seems like the auto aim system has lead everybody to a false sense of security, that we now have to give tips on how to land stuff.

Azrael's Wingblast: I believe this is the only skill shot in the game. Wingblast does not lock onto any enemies, and it will shoot exactly in the direction that you are facing, so make sure that you're actually facing the enemies when using it, and avoid using it when you are up (high) in the air, because Wingblast will not move in a diagonal direction, and will shoot at the same (vertical) height as you.

Bastardo's leap of faith: Easily the most frequently missed ability in the game.You should avoid using leap of faith on enemies that are too close, because it will most likely miss, and if you are chasing a running enemy, try to jump up in the air before leaping, it'll increase the chance of landing on a moving target. BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, enter the dojo and learn the maximum distance that a leap of faith can travel, and avoid using it on enemies that are out of reach. Leap of faith can cancel enemy abilities and that's a powerful tool to have, so make sure to learn how to use it.

Cass' blade dance: The speed in which you can travel while in blade dance animation is only equal to your base movement speed, so try to position yourself so that you'll at least get some damage done before you use it.

Daemon's shift strike: This ability does not automatically move towards your enemy, so make sure to be facing towards the enemy (unless you are trying to escape) and learn the maximum distance it travels so you can know when to activate it. Shift strike does very good AoE damage that can finish off enemies or turn the tides of battle.

Gizmo's Sucka: Sucka does massive AoE damage and I only see few Gizmo players use it on enemies that are cuddled up together. Yes it's a good idea to use it on the 1 enemy that is chasing you, but like shift strike, sucka can really devastate the enemy team in a team fight with how much damage it does.

Nidhöggr's Boomitar: Boomitar is very easy to evade, so if you're not certain that it will stun the enemy, enter the dojo and learn the maximum distance it travels (with/without range mod) and try to hit it at or close to maximum range. The closer the enemy is standing to its maximum range, the more difficult it is to dodge the returning boomitar. Or you can try to hit a wall with it (after if it has hit an enemy), and it will stun them instantly.

Thank you for reading this part of the Misfit's Guide.
If you want to read more about the fundamentals of Bleeding Edge you may check out the guide on fundamentals here: The Misfit's Guide to Fundamentals
So long folks!

Rebel Tetris

@Surrtan

Both guides are really detailed and interesting, they definitely show a lot of hard work and thought. Thank you for making these and I hope they help any players looking for a little more insight into the world of Bleeding Edge combat!

XxUnReached

@Rebel-Tetris a community option in main menu (and recommend this in tutorials) would be good add on future for new players(and even for older ones)

It's so good,unless you,showes noticed this guide.

The Misfit's Guide to Bleeding Edge (2): Mechanics