#psyche burst

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Review: A History of (not always functional) Psyche Burst Gauges.

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What do you call an EVO moment that happened during EVO that wasn't at EVO?

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Hemi Jack is no joke.

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One of my online friends reminded me recently of one of my personal pet peeves: 1-hit bursting, also called chicken-bursting.

Now, I get it, skilled players are scary, you don’t want to get combo-ed in to the ground... but 90% of the time that limits a ton of your options.

If your strategy consists of constantly running away like Hazama players and such, okay, I get it, it’s a valid strategy... especially if you’re a glass cannon type.

But don’t think for a minute that strategy will constantly work.

I say this for many reasons.

1. Bursts in GG can be blocked/grabbed.

2. Bursts in BB can be blocked and in BBTag players can bait you in to using it on reflex and that means one less tag option you had than before.  You won’t be able to use assists mid-combo or outside of neutral situations and your damage potential will become extremely limited.  In BBCF that also means no Exceeds either when you want the extra damage.

There are players who respond to even the slightest jab with a Burst or some move with Invincible frames... again this does NOT always work.  There are guard point moves, there’s moves that are Air Safe and there’s even moves that just plain allow the opponent to back away and escape just as you’re trying to DP out of whatever they were conditioning you at least have the guts to block!

A large chunk of this is psychological.  You literally have to overcome the idea of taking damage and not being scared to lose half your life bar for mistakes.

Overcome your fear of getting hit.  If you can stay calm, you won’t burst as often, you will then be able to use your tools for WHEN you need them the most.

In addition, by taking damage, you’re respecting your opponent’s ability to do combos.  This is, believe it or not, a form of “communication” to the other player... it’s saying “I’m waiting for you to do something more important that will slip you up!”  It makes them focus more on hit confirmed combos and less on random jabbing and resets in neutral.

In GG, usually the best time to burst is after a Roman Cancel, because that means you’re breaking a combo that costs valuable resources.  Burst is also a tool for getting you out of the corner in key bad positions.

For BBTag you might want to consider using your Burst/Assist resources to take advantage of your opponent’s Assists, like punishing them with a Happy Birthday situation where both player and assist get punished.  Or escaping whenever they use their Assist gauge as that takes longer to recover than a simple short combo.

But if you’re still the type who absolutely HAS to Burst to get out of trouble, at least make sure your opponent isn’t anticipating it, otherwise they’ll just throw out random pokes and zoning to spook you.

Lastly, more than anything else, letting the opponent combo is an opportunity for you to LEARN how they do THEIR OWN COMBOS.  So, forget for a moment that you’re the one getting hit and imagine you’re the one doing the combo!  It’s a learning experience!

Fighting games are all about exposition, but if you’re too scared of that exposition, you’re going to miss out on what makes these games fun in the first place!

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Conquer your Fears or they will Conquer you.

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Watching Pachi tutorials from 4gamer I notice the characters have now a blue spark over their body to indicate they have burst available, personally I find it distracting, what is your opinion and why do you think they are doing it when you have the big and flashy burst icon below the health bar.

Just to clarify you have Burst, and then you have Overdrives, and then you have Burst Overdrives.

Burst Overdrives sacrifice your Burst to enhance the damage of an Overdrive attack (Press Dust instead of the normal Heavy Slash button during inputs I believe), but if the attack lands you get 1/3rd of your Burst gauge back, same as if a normal Blue Burst lands.  If it misses you lose all your Burst gauge.

So you really have to think carefully about your play style and how you intend to use that Burst.

On the plus side, a Burst Overdrive can’t be “airthrown” but at the same time you lose an opportunity to break out of your opponent’s offense.

The “sparks” are just an indicator that you have meter for an overdrive and your burst gauge is full, it’s useful not just for the player but for the opponent as well, as they’ll be more wary of your state, as you could even get away with a Gold Burst if they aren’t paying attention.  There’s also a special animation that happens whenever you get 1/3rd of your Burst gauge back when Burst lands.

Lastly, Burst and Overdrives “stack” with Hellfire state (low health), so depending on what you use it for, it could seriously up the ante.

I can’t begin to imagine what would happen if Sol used his Burst for Dragon Install, or if Bedman used Burst for Hemi Jack, or even if Ky used Burst for Sacred Edge through a Grinder!  There’s a ton of possibilities with this!

Fun Fact: In early versions of Guilty Gear XX Accent Core, I-No and Dizzy had a Burst Overdrive… it used up Burst and meter to be used:

For I-No it was her infamous Megalomania attack (which has now become her Instant Kill)

For Dizzy it was her “Gold boss only” attack Wings of Light and required 3 FRCs to activate so 75% Tension to use along with Burst!  It had 3 ways of hitting the opponent: a pillar of light from the ground, a radial laser, and a full on omni-directional blast which did a ton of damage and hits…

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Is the Burst Overdrive system supposed to be like a cross between the EX Mode and Force Break?

No, it’s closer to an overall damage enhancement, similar to how Hellfire works in terms of damage.

Basically, for example, Sol can do Tyrant Rave on Chipp and do a ton more damage from the attack with Burst AND Hellfire… over 50% last I heard… than he normally would with just Tyrant Rave alone.