Bleeding Edge tips: Here are the best starter characters for each class

Damage, healer, tank

Bleeding Edge is now out on PC and Xbox One, and the meta is very early yet. We’re here to help.

Here are three of the strongest characters in Bleeding Edge that are great to pick up and play immediately so you get off on the right foot.

Damage – Daemon

Daemon is the ninja of the group, and although he’s a very strong 1v1 fighter, he can get pretty much anything done when he needs to.

His shift ability serves as a fourth dash of sorts (Daemon has access to three dashes by default), but make sure you finish shift by pressing X to trigger a slash combo. Daemon can scale walls with wall jump to get away from near-death situations: make sure you always keep an eye open for ways to change your elevation, as most of the fighters in Bleeding Edge can’t follow you if you exit a battle this way.

Stealth is similarly invaluable for getting away or pursuing a weakened enemy without them knowing, but you can also cancel stealth with the Y button when next to an opponent to sleep them. This can be huge in a teamfight as you can run over to the healer or tank in the corner, sleep them to shut them down, then go back into the fight.

But his shurikens (which house multiple charges) are his greatest tool. While it does drain health over time and do damage, the slow is its most valuable asset. Stagger your shurikens against retreating enemies to constantly slow them and finish them off. Even with dashes they won’t be able to get away from a staggered set of slows and a sleep, with a shift finisher.

Like all fighters, Bleeding Edge lets you pick between two supers (ultimates) each game, and Daemon’s is a no-brainer: shadow strike. This is one of the strongest supers available, as it allows Daemon to hit a giant area of fighters all at once for several seconds, and remain completely invincible in the process. It’s a great “about to die” button or a way to finish off a healer or prime target (like someone who’s holding a lot of objective currency) when all of your cooldowns are spent.

When fighting against Daemon, remember that his stealth ability is on a large cooldown (18 seconds). If you’re the aggressor he can be taken down quickly if you knock him out of stealth by doing area-of-effect damage: with stealth out of the picture you can better chase him down, keeping in mind that he can still wall jump to safety.

Healer – Kulev

At Jordan’s recommendation, I started to learn Kulev and never looked back.

Although your other two healer choices are enticing, Kulev, like the other characters listed here, can rock 1v1 and group fights equally. Sacred Ground is an area-of-effect heal that hits your whole team (and damages enemies at the same time), while Good Omen (a shield) can be self-casted or aimed at an ally. Curse (25% increased damage for an enemy in the form of a debuff) is extremely useful for taking out healers or a 1v1 opponent. He’s a jack of all trades.

When casting sacred ground, make sure you aim it at a central location, like directly on top of an objective. This is early in the game’s lifecycle and not everyone knows how all of the abilities work, so using Kulev’s healing ability in a corner where no one can see it is a surefire way to get people to ignore it. I found that by placing it in the most obvious spot, your teammates can’t avoid it. You can also put it around a corner to prevent enemy teams from destroying it.

If you’re getting attacked, mash Y (double-tap, specifically) to self-cast good omen, then dash away. One very quick method of getting away and confusing opponents is to drop down a level, then immediately jump back up using a jump pad. If they aren’t following you the entire time with their camera, you’re already gone or out of range of their abilities.

Although mind control can be a decent super in a group fight, I’ve found boon to be far better as it’s more flexible: at first. Once you really have some map study under your belt, mind control is excellent for forcing enemies into runaway trains or energy barriers on certain maps.

Fighting Kulev can be a pain, but make sure you take down his sacred ground ward (it can be targeted) whenever he puts it down. His main heal is on a long 13-second cooldown, so if you stop it before it starts, he’s mostly out of commission.

Tank – El Bastardo

Although I refrained from picking him at first because of his dumb-ass name, El Bastardo can put in work as a true tank.

He’s one of the most resilient characters in the entire game, thanks to his life support passive, which converts damage into shields. He also excels in 1v1 combat due to his stun, leap of faith, and does well in groups thanks to his spinning death spiral area-of-effect whirlwind. Add in the life-leeching empower and you’re off to the races.

One thing you really need to keep in mind is that leap of faith really should be aimed with a lock-on. If you went into the game sight unseen, skipping the tutorials, you may have missed that LT actually serves as your lock-on button. Make sure you hold it down before you use leap of faith. Also make sure you only trigger empower when you’re at about half health, so its bonus isn’t wasted.

As for what super to take, I recommend overload if your team is lacking damage: in fact, I take this super most of the time to increase my 1v1 and teamfight capabilities. Unbreakable (cannot be killed for five seconds) is nice in theory, but I’ve found that if you’re in the position where you’re about to die, you’ll just die after that five seconds is up. When playing public games with randoms who won’t heal you up, this only spares you a few extra moments before your untimely demise.

Countering El Bastardo is easy if you have stuns at your disposal. He can’t heal if he can’t damage you, so stay far away from him and be ready to dodge his leap of faith stun every 12 seconds. If he just leapt, go all in on him from mid to long range. Maeve’s cage is a good hard counter to El Bastardo.