BBCT/Mechanics

Revolver Action

Revolver Action (also colloquially referred to by the name of the Guilty Gear equivalent of "gatling") is a combo system that allows you to chain a series of normal attacks together. It involves you cancelling the animation of a normal move into another normal so that the hits come out in rapid succession. Each character has different rules as to which normals can cancel into what other actions (and some attacks can't even be canceled at all), but the general order you can chain moves together goes in the following flow for most characters: A -> B -> C -> D

Health Bar

Yellow life bar on the top of the screen indicates characters’ stamina. When that runs out the character lose the round. A portion of all inflicted damage is shown as a red segment of the life bar.

Interestingly, most characters' total health points and their visual representations in the health bar vary. For example, Ragna's health total is 10000, but when he visually has 20% health left on the health bar, he actually has 3000 points of life instead of 2000. Different characters have their health bars split at different points and in different ways, and some don't have this at all and their health bar is traditionally distributed.

Health point ratio is important because it has effect on Heat Gauge that regenerates when the character is below 20% health bar. However, in the event of a time-out, the game is decided on percentage of the remaining health bar instead of the total health point. That is the drawback of having a life bar that is denser towards the latter portion.

Here is the data:

Health Values
Character	Total Health & Split	Health Ratio
Ragna	10000 (7000+3000)	80:20
Jin	11500 (5750+5750)	50:50
Noel	11000 (5500+5500)	50:50
Tager	13000 (9100+3900)	80:20
Taokaka	10500 (5250+5250)	50:50
Rachel	11000 (5500+5500)	50:50
Arakune	10500 (7350+3150)	80:20
Bang	11500 (7475+4025)	75:25
Litchi	11000 (7700+3300)	80:20
Carl	9500 (6650+2850)	80:20
Hakumen	12000 (8400+3600)	80:20
Nu-13	10000 (6400+3600)	80:20

Heat Gauge

Used to perform Distortion Drive, Rapid Cancel, etc. The Heat Gauge is all the way at the bottom of the screen. Whenever characters attack, the amount of Heat Gauge they are receiving is based on the formula: [Attack Damage x 1.05 x Heat Gain Rate] / 100

Characters receive small amount of Heat Gauge when they block, and a fixed 3% whenever they Instant Block successfully. When the character's health bar is below 20%, the Heat Gauge starts to increase passively.

Hakumen has a unique Heat Gauge. Other than it increases as he attacks, receives damage, or blocks, the heat gauge increase automatically regardless the health bar condition (twice the speed below 20% health bar). Once the gauge is full, it stores as a stock. Hakumen can hold 8 stocks in total.

List of Heat Gauge required moves:

Distortion Drive (50%)
Rapid Cancel (50%)
Counter Assault (50%)
Astral Heat (100%, plus other condition)
Some of Jin's special moves (25%)
All Hakumen's special moves (Varies)

After using any of the above moves, your heat gauge will increase at 25% of it's normal speed for 200 frames afterward.

Here is the Heat Gain Rate table:

Heat Gain Rates
Character	Heat Gain Rate
Ragna	70%
Jin	75%
Noel	75%
Tager	70%
Taokaka	70%
Rachel	80%
Arakune	80%
Bang	70%
Litchi	70%
Carl	80%
Hakumen	30%
Nu-13	70%

Rapid Cancel

A+B+C after attack connects with opponent and with 50 Heat (air OK)

Rapid Cancel (commonly abbreviated as just "RC") is inherited from Guilty Gear's Roman Cancel mechanic. Rapid Cancels immediately cancel any attack that does not whiff (in other words, any attack that touches the opponent) and brings yourself back into a neutral state instead of having to wait for the remaining active or recovery frames to play out. These cancels are very powerful for making new frame traps, new combos, or making attacks safe. Even projectiles can be RCed after they touch the opponent!

There are very few attacks that can not Rapid Canceled, mainly the cinematic parts of attacks and supers.

Counter Assault

6A+B During Ground Blockstun with 50 Heat

Counter Assaults are one of the few options available to a defender during blockstun. They are invincible attacks that do zero damage, but blow the opponent away, and are useful for escaping an enemy's offensive pressure.

Every character's Counter Assault is unique, but they share many similarities:

Invincible startup
Does zero damage
Combos including a Counter Assault can not kill the opponent, no matter how much damage is dealt
- They will always survive with at least 1 HP remaining.
Heat Cooldown for 180 frames

Special Attack

Motion Input + A/B/C/D

Special attacks are fancier attacks that have special properties such as invincibility or unique movement. Special attacks typically do 5% of their base damage as chip damage on block unless the opponent uses Barrier.

Each character's special attacks are unique and are explained in more detail in each character's page.

Distortion Drive

Motion Input + A/B/C/D with at least 50 Heat

Distortion Drives (commonly referred to as supers) are an even stronger version of Special attacks that deal large amounts of damage or have other special properties like invincibility or powering up the character. Each character's supers are unique and are explained in more detail in each character's page.

There are some common features:

All Distortion Drives have a brief moment where they pause time during startup (with a small number of exceptions), called the superflash. Opponents can buffer moves during this time which makes them generally poor moves to throw out at neutral since it's very easy to react to them.
After the Heat is used, the player will enter 180F of Heat Gauge Cooldown.
Immediately following the super flash, the opponent cannot burst if they are already in hitstun.
All hits of a Distortion Drive attack also disable Burst on hit.
Distortion Drives are often excellent combo enders due to having minimum damage.
Finishing a round with a Distortion Drive is declared as a Distortion Finish, this is purely a cosmetic effect.

Astral Heat

Character Specific Input when conditions are met

Astral Heats are fancy super attacks that will instantly defeat the opponent on hit! Astrals require the following conditions:

You have 100 Heat.
You are on match point (if you win this round, you win the match)
Opponent's health is below 35% at start of the combo.

Due to these restrictions, Astrals are typically only used as fancy finishing attacks at the ends of combos as there are often more practical and safe ways to use that Heat.

Astrals CAN be used in a combo if you build up the 100 Heat by the time you wish to use your Astral.

Astral Heats are Burst invulnerable throughout their startup, in addition to any other invulnerability they might have; Most Astrals Heats are also fully invulnerable until at least the super flash.

Barrier Gauge

10000 points total, a gauge that decreases when you use Barrier to defend. It regenerates 7 points per 10 frames if you stop using Barrier for 120 frames. When it reaches zero, that character enter Danger condition for 600 frames. During this time barrier gauge regenerate back to 5000 points then you can use Barrier again. Learn more about this gauge's usage in the sections below.

Barrier

While Guarding, hold A + B

Barrier is an interesting and highly useful technique. It's often used to negate chip damage, but it has other important uses.

Barrier is often used to end an opponent's offense sooner by pushing them out of attack range. An advanced strategy is to make the opponent's attack miss by pushing him away with Barrier, then counter attack while the opponent is still recovering from his whiffed attack! Note, however, that Barrier and Instant Barrier (described below) do not get any increased pushback against projectiles - you will receive the same pushback as though you had blocked them normally.

Notable aspects of Barrier

Consumes Barrier Gauge while buttons are held
- Emptying the Barrier Gauge will disable Barrier and put you in Danger State
Can air Barrier to guard almost all air unblockable strikes
Prevents chip damage and Guard Libra imbalance
Increases pushback
- This pushback is split between attacker and defender (if one is cornered, then the other experiences the full pushback distance)
Increases blockstun by 1F

Just like with Instant Blocking, you still must block high/low attacks correctly when using Barrier.

Holding [4] + A + B will put you character into blocking posture and prevent walking backwards even when there's nothing to block. This is true even when the Barrier Gauge is empty.

Guard Libra

Below the timer is the Guard Libra bar (10000 points total). When guarding or forcing your opponent to guard, this gauge will shift. Once it is about 20% left to one side, that character turns blue when blocking. Note that Guard Libra does not recover for 300 frames after blocking a move, getting hit or a knockdown, and then it recovers 7 points per frame until the character blocks or getting hit again. When it fills up completely to one side, the guarding player will undergo a Barrier Crush and will be stunned temporarily.

Each character has a different rate of Guard Libra reduction. (Higher rate = better defense, vice versa)

Guard Libra Rates
Character	Guard Libra Rate
Ragna	100%
Jin	120%
Noel	100%
Tager	150%
Taokaka	80%
Rachel	110%
Arakune	90%
Bang	100%
Litchi	110%
Carl	80%
Hakumen	140%
Nu-13	100%