More actions
System Mechanics Page Info
BlazBlue Entropy Effect is by no means an easy game to get into from a beginners position. In classic BlazBlue fashion, BBEE uses a plethora of unique terms that quickly complicate the game. Additionally, BBEE lacks a strong tutorial to direct new players, leaving many people lost when starting out. In order to attempt to alleviate this, this page is dedicated to the many system mechanics and irregular terminology involved in playing the game.
Evotypes
An Evotype is BBEE's name for the playable characters. Any time the word "Evotype" is used, it is always referring to the cast of playable characters. You will have enough Analyzers to unlock every character (except for DLC) by the time that you finish the story without buying any of them from the shop, so it is not a bad idea to advance through the story as quick as possible to get every character before starting a New Game+.
After dying or finishing a run of Mind Training, you'll have the ability to save your Evotype. The saved Evotype has three purposes. The first is being used for Inheritance, which can be seen below. The second is being used for the Mind Challenge, a series of individual bosses that you can fight as many times as you wish with the saved Evotype. After fighting all of the bosses in their normal mode variants, you'll then have to fight them in their hard mode variants; the hard mode variants have more health and have new attacks, so they can sometimes be considerably harder. Finally, you can use them in the Mind Trial. The Mind Trial is a boss rush where you'll fight several waves of bosses in a row, with minimal chances to heal. Because you're using your saved Evotype, you'll have access to all the same Tactics and Potentials that you gained before. Upon completion of the Mind Trial, you'll unlock Color 02, which tends to be a red skin for the Evotype you cleared it with. You can also do Mind Trial in Co-Op, often making the gauntlet a bit easier.
Evotype Inheritance
When you either die or finish a run, you'll have the opportunity to save a record of your Evotype. You'll be given the chance to choose two of the Tactics you gained in said run. Now, when you start a run and choose a different character, you'll have the opportunity to "Inherit" the skill, talents, and Tactics of the saved Evotype. Each Evotype has a talent that provides some sort of buff to the character, this talent is passed down in inheritance. The skill that they pass down are called Legacy Skills, and they are an attack that resembles one of the Evotype's attacks. For example, Es will pass down her talent, "The Power of Crests," and her Legacy Skill, "Crest Arts." This would mean that if you inherit Es's Evotype onto Hibiki, he would generate a crest when dodging and when he used the Legacy Skill. Inheriting an Evotype does not consume them, so you'll be able to use them again later. A more in-depth look at inheriting Tactics can be seen here.
Potentials
Potentials are the upgrades you will use to enhance your Evotype. They will directly alter the way your Evotype plays, while also increasing the damage across the board for all Potentials, not Tactics. For every Potential you obtain, you get a 20% increase in damage. There are three types of upgrades you will gain from Potentials.
New Moves: Often the most important skills are locked behind needing to get from a Potential. Potentials will give your Evotype new moves can often drastically change just how strong you are and how the character will approach enemies. An example would be Hibiki unlocking Endlos Lace, which gives him a new attack for holding the Skill button.
Upgrades: Potentials have the ability to alter how your unlocked skills function, making them more powerful in the process. These can also upgrade your base skills, with some of the most important upgrades you can get is the ability to dash and jump three times in a row. Most Potentials have several upgrades that will alter them. Hibiki's Endlos Lace has three upgrades that causes more clones to be spawned, clones teleport behind enemies, and clones exploding.
Hidden Effects: Hidden Effects are created when you unlock specific Potentials. Like Double Tactics, they can be from the same Potential or from two different Potentials. They usually assign the attribute of one Potential to the other, and one Potential can have multiple Hidden Effects unlocked as you continue to unlock more Potentials. Endlos Lace only has one Hidden Effect which makes his clones have a bigger explosion and deal more damage. The required Potential is Dual Wing Double Smash and its first upgrade.
Universal Enhancements
As you play, you most likely will notice Potentials that describe changes made to your "Universal Attacks" and "Universal Skills." These are most commonly seen under the Potential Upgrades called "Universal Enhancements."
Universal Attacks are any of your attacks that utilize the attack button. An example would be Lambda's Sword Summoner EX, which uses the input Up + Attack. These Potentials will not consume any resource, will trigger Tactics in the Attack slot, and are effected by Universal Attack Enhancements. An example of the Enhancements is Lambda being able to increase the amount of blades she summons and making them larger.
Universal Skills are any attacks that use the skill button to attack and use your Evotype's MP. These trigger any Tactics in the Skill Slot. Lambda's Sword Summoner EX Elysium, her default skill, summons three waves of swords in front of her and it costs 33 MP per wave. Lambda has the Universal Skill Enhancement that makes any attacks that use the Skill button larger and break super armor.
Dodging versus Invulnerability
While similar, the invincibility frames you gain from dodging with your dash button and from using an attack that gives invulnerability are not the same. They have distinct properties to make them useful for certain situations.
Dodge Frames: When you dash with the dash button, your character has dodge invulnerability frames. You will pass through any attacks, projectiles, or traps without taking damage. Different Evotypes have different amounts of dodge frames, where Kokonoe has an extremely small amount (only for the initial part of her dash or teleport) and Rachel having the most (the entire dash is invulnerable). Additionally, any of these dashes or dash potentials will trigger Tactics in the Dash slot, meaning some characters like Hibiki can trigger Dash Tactics with multiple attacks. Hakumen specifically has no dodge frames on his dash, and instead has super armor to tank attacks. He can still trigger his dash tactics, but he will take damage while dashing until you get one of the Potential upgrades to his dash. The main weakness that dashes have is that they lose to two types of attacks from bosses. The first type are grabs, which only the Sweeper has. You must jump to avoid the grab as you will be grabbed mid dash. The second type are attacks signaled with a purple !. These attacks cannot be dodged through and you will be punished for it.
Invulnerability Frames: Certain Potentials provide invincibility for the duration of the attack. If your familiar with the fighting game, you'll recognize these attacks as their DPs, which are used to be completely invulnerable to attacks. These tend to be a bit more varied from character to character, and not Evotype has moves with this property. The most common are attacks that either have the invulnerable frames immediately or gain them with Potential upgrades, like Ragna's Inferno Divider. Next are SP Potentials. Most characters have the option to unlock Potentials that use a unique resource called SP. Unless specified, like in Noel's Sleipnir, these skills have innate invulnerability. The third type are parries, a special form of attack that does no damage until you are hit. You're completely invulnerable during the duration of the parry's stance and attack, except to grabs from the Sweeper. Only Jin and Hakumen have these parries. The last is Rachel's Sankishin: Tsukuyomi, where she gains a full fifteen seconds of invulnerability. These forms of invincibility, unless specified are immune to all attacks, including the unique boss attacks with the purple !.
Super Armor
Super Armor is a common attribute that you'll see in the list of Potentials of your Evotype. It's typically an upgrade that grants the Potential the ability to break the super armor of enemies. A common misconception is that super armor is an attribute that bosses have. Bosses have no form of super armor and are instead broken into three states. Super armor is instead a mechanic that only certain normal enemies have that you can see by the orange outline that they have. The first example you'd see are the armored cops with riot shields that crouch, and then charge at you. When an enemy has this orange glow, they are unaffected by skills or tactics that move opponents and they also take heavily reduced damage until the armor is broken. Hakumen actually has his own form of Super Armor with the same properties as the enemies, which triggers during his dash and certain attacks. His Universal Enhancements instead make him take increasingly reduced damage while his super armor is active.