Beyblade Burst Review: B-14 Wyvern Armed Massive + “The Disk Problem”
Wyvern Armed Massive was my most anticipated release of Beyblade Burst. It’s purple and blue! It comes with a purple BeyLauncher! It’s a dragon!
And most importantly, it’s a Defense-type. Defense is in need of a buff, after-all; even though Defense-types should theoretically handle Attack-types very well, Valkyrie’s smashing power is so strong that surviving a well-aimed shot is nigh impossible.
Does Wyvern Armed Massive change the metagame? Or will Valkyrie be allowed run amok until, at least, the next release?
While Wyvern’s seven-spiked design might look aggressive, don’t be deceived: it’s a defensive powerhouse, and provides a reliable counter to Valkyrie when used in the proper customizations.
Because all currently-released Beyblade Burst products are right-spin only, the tips of Wyvern’s spikes never strike the opposing Beyblade.
What actually happens is that the slopes of Wyvern’s spikes serve to parry incoming hits. When Valkyrie’s spike comes into contact with Wyvern, there are two likely outcomes:
Valkyrie hits the outside of Wyvern’s spike, resulting in minimal impact, or
Valkyrie hits the empty space between Wyvern’s spikes, causing Valkyrie to be pushed away
My favourite combination is Wyvern Heavy Accel. While it may use an Attack-type tip, its goal is the same as any Defense-type: to avoid being knocked-out or burst, and outspin the opposing Attack-type at the end of the battle.
This type of Defense-type play is referred to as active defense, and accomplishes two goals:
The opposing Blader cannot simply aim for the center and expect to hit you.
The impact of hits that do connect is reduced exponentially.
While Wyvern will often be pushed away by Valkyrie as well, this rarely seemed to translate into a win for Valkyrie. After playing dozens of matches, Valkyrie Heavy Accel only won a handful of times — once by knockout, a handful of times by outspin, and never by burst. Wyvern Heavy Accel defeated it in more than 80% of matches, even though it was always shot roughly five seconds earlier than Valkyrie Heavy Accel.
Generally, Wyvern Heavy Accel would outspin it with just a few seconds to spare, though there were a handful of times where it was able to burst Valkyrie Heavy Accel.
That said, Wyvern Heavy Accel tends to win battles by razor-thin margins. If you’re worried that your launch is weaker than your opponent’s, you might be better-served with Wyvern Heavy Survive. You can use a reasonably-worn Survive for added grip to the stadium floor.
This combo holds up reasonably well against Valkyrie Heavy Accel, but is a bit of a sitting duck since it tends to stay in the center of the BeyStadium. Talented Attack-type players may be able to burst or KO it early in the match.
And what of the other top-tier defensive Layer, Kerbeus? I would say I don’t have high hopes for its continued use. While there’s potentially a niche combination that has yet to be discovered — or relies on to-be-released parts — the fact is that compared to Wyvern’s effective parrying, the potential recoil of Kerbeus’ larger spikes just doesn’t seem worth it.
While Wyvern appears to take the mantle of the new Defense-type Layer of choice, the same can’t be said of the rest of the parts in this release.
As the previous sentence probably spoiled: Armed sucks.
That’s unfortunate, considering Armed is arguably the most highly-anticipated part of this package, due to its bulky appearance implying a heavy weight. In actuality, it’s quite light: flipping it over reveals that most of it is hollowed out.
But the reason it feels particularly disappointing goes beyond it failing to fend of Valkyrie. There’s also an issue here that speaks to a pervasive issue in Burst’s part design thus far — one it’s inherited from its 17-year-old plastic predecessors.
Currently, there are six Disks released: Wing, Spread, Central, Heavy, Oval, and now Armed.
Armed’s lightness, combined with a bulky shape that adds air resistance, and the fact that all Drivers are the same height — making Disk on Layer contact very uncommon — mean that Armed has effectively no use in competitive play.
In fact, only Heavy and Spread have shown to be good choices for any particular type of combo. Heavy is the Disk of choice for Attack and Defense-types, whereas the longest-spinning combination of Deathscyther Spread Survive relies on Spread to increase stamina and reduce the likelihood of bursting.
Back in the very first generation of Beyblades, weight disks generally came in three varieties — Heavy, Balance, and Wide, in varying shapes and sizes as the series went on. Balance was almost never used, but Heavy and Wide were quite popular.
(Pictured: Ten Heavy, Ten Balance, and Ten Wide, which were the standard-issue Weight Disks for the V, V2, and GT generations of plastic Beyblades.)
However, Weight Disks were never designed to be headline items, unlike the Disks in Burst. They were simply there to give and distribute weight across the top. They were solely functional requirements.*
Burst seems to have higher aspirations for them, but Heavy and Spread are so clearly better that it’s hard to perceive the others as anything more than junk parts.
In particular, I think coming out of the gate with a disk called Heavy that weighs more than every other, as its defining characteristic, was a bad idea. The heaviest Disk will always be a dominant choice, and its compact shape has almost no drawbacks.
This is all especially frustrating when we take a good look at Armed and the previous Disk release, Oval, that came with Deathscyther Oval Accel.
Both look impressive from above, but viewing them from underneath shows just how little metal is actually being used. If these parts were closer to Heavy in weight, they could be competitive options existing in a system of advantages and tradeoffs. Instead, they’re junk.
And I get it, not every part is good. In fact, releases that become dominant in their categories tend to come few and far between. That’s just part of Beyblade. But they should at least do something. They should change the game in a tangible way, for better or worse.
Otherwise, don’t bother introducing so much variety in the first place. Just give us decent ones all the time instead.
While it’s possible that a later-released part could unlock some potential in Massive, the outlook isn’t rosy. Its Stamina is incredibly poor; so much so, that Valkyrie Heavy Accel can roam around the outside of the stadium and finish it off late in the match. This makes it fundamentally useless as a Defense-type Driver, since all the opposing player need do to defeat is change their approach.
To add insult to injury, it doesn’t seem to have better Defense than a worn Survive Driver, and the spikes around its perimeter serve to wittle its Stamina down even further.
Conclusion: Armed and Massive disappoint, but Wyvern introduces a new dimension to Defense-type play
It’s a shame that just like Deathscyther Oval Accel, this release’s only redeeming part is its Layer. And while the availability of the BeyLauncher in this set — and available separately in red — is appreciated, it seems that the technical issues within it haven’t been adequately addressed.
But Wyvern immensely strengthens the positioning of Defense in the metagame. Anyone looking to build a stable of tournament-ready combinations will want to add this to their arsenal.
UPDATE October 8, 2015: This piece originally dismissed each part in Wyvern Armed Massive as useless, which was an extremely premature conclusion, which I addressed in my post Reconsidering Wyvern, and the Amazing Active Defense.
Additionally, I previously claimed that Valkyrie Heavy Accel could out-stall Wyvern Heavy Survive, but I wasn’t able to replicate that result beyond my inital play sessions. Thusly, I’ve written on the merits of Wyvern Heavy Survive as well.
* There were a few types of “special” Weight Disks from Random Boosters and special event packages, most of which were useless, but two of which — Wide Defense and Wide Survive — ended up supplanting all others in almost all competitive combinations. But we’re at the beginning of Burst and the situation is already this bad.
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