BBCF/Gauges
Health
Each character has a different amount of health, see each character's page for their values or see the System Data for a table to compare across all characters.
The health bar in BBCF is slightly misleading; it's not exactly linear, it's denser near the end to give the effect that a player is barely surviving a "fatal" blow, and thus more dramatic. A good rule of thumb is to look at the section of the health bar gets thicker; that's where the health bar gets denser.
Heat Gauge
The Heat Gauge is like a traditional "super meter" in other fighting games. Heat is used to perform Rapid Cancels, Distortions Drives, Counter Assaults, etc. The Heat Gauge resets to empty at the start of each round so it's best to use all your Heat before the round is over if you can. BBCF/Frame Data
Based on this, we can note some basic facts:
- Heat gained from hitting the opponent/getting hit is directly proportional to damage. Thus you can approximate the amount of Heat you and the opponent have gained based on how much damage a combo does, though rounding errors make this inexact.
- As a few quick rules of thumb, dealing 2000 damage will earn 14 Heat, while taking 2000 damage will earn 8 Heat.
- Instant Blocking many individual attacks gives a lot of Heat. This is especially useful in long predictable blockstrings, giving you more resources to retaliate with in the future.
- Exceptions
- Some moves ignore the formula and build a specific amount of Heat (Which can be different for each player), usually none. For example, Tager's Gadget Finger builds 5 Heat for Tager, even though it only does 100 damage. Terumi's Drives build significant amounts of Heat for him while the opponent gains nothing from being hit by those moves unless he/she instant blocked. All moves that consume heat to use will also generate none for the attacker, but generate heat as normal for the defender.
Heat Gauge Cooldown
After performing an ability that consumes the Heat Gauge (such as Rapid Cancels, Crush Triggers, and Jin's D Special Attacks), you will gain 75% less heat and auto heat gain will stop for a set amount of time (usually 180F). The countdown is in real time, and even counts down during the super flash for moves that caused it in the first place. If a new heat cooldown is started, it completely overrides the previous value, even if the new one is shorter than the existing one. So moves with shorter heat cooldown can be used to override longer durations.
Some attacks have shorter or longer cooldowns, such as Hakumen's Kishuu (30F) and Mugen (360F).
Automatic Heat Gain
When your health bar is under 35% (When you health bar turns orange), you will slowly gain Heat automatically. Hakumen's meter will gain at a faster rate when he goes under 35% health. The Heat Gauge will continually pulse after you reach 35% health.
The rate of gaining heat for all characters are 11 heat unit per 10 frames: you will get 1 heat per frame, and at each 10th frame, you will get 2 heat instead.
Auto Heat Gain is temporarily disabled (usually for 180F) after using an attack that costs Heat like Crush Trigger and supers.
Barrier Gauge
The Barrier Gauge is used whenever you Barrier Block. Barrier Blocking is highly useful in defensive situations because it allows players to block air unblockable attacks, prevent chip damage, and prevent Guard Crushes.
When the Barrier Gauge is emptied, then the gauge becomes greyed out, Barrier Block is disabled, and the character enters Danger State. During this time, barrier will be regenerated, but the bar will be dark red and unusable until it has completely restored, ending danger state. Entering overdrive will re-enable the use of whatever barrier you have regenerated and end danger state.
Getting Negative Penalty completely drains the Barrier Gauge and prevents it regenerating until Negative Penalty is over, forcing Danger State for much longer than normal!
Details about the Barrier Gauge is as follows:
- Each full Barrier Gauge has 10,000 units.
- Each usage of barrier block instantly consumes 100 units.
- After the first frame of activation, whenever the Barrier is active, 10 unit is spent per frame. You do not consume any units in hitstop, superflash, etc.
- Upon defending an attack, you will consume (the raw damage of that attack / 2) units. If this number exceeds 500 (meaning the raw damage is over 1000), the barrier will only take 500 units of damage.
- The Barrier Gauge starts to recover 124 frames after deactivation at the rate of 16 units every 10 frames. This recover is real-time: it will not be affected by hitstop, superflash, etc.
- After all the barrier gauge is depleted, the character will be in DANGER state for 900F. Entering overdrive will re-enable the use of whatever barrier you have regenerated and end danger state.
- Guard break
Everyone's uncharged Guard Crush move does not impose extra damage on barrier (meaning it consumes 500 units as normal). Charged version however, deals extra 4000 units damage to the barrier.
- Exceptions
Some attacks will ignore the "half-raw damage rule": such attack will usually require Barrier block or it will not be blockable. For example, Terumi's Screeches of the Condemned (Jarin Renshouga) deals extra 4000 barrier damage twice.
Burst Gauge
When the Burst Gauge is full, you gain access to two options: Overdrive and Burst.
You start the match with a full Burst Gauge and it's status carries over between rounds, so Bursting at the end of a round means you will start the next round with an empty Burst Gauge. Ending a round while overdrive is active will end overdrive and set the Burst gauge to 30% full.
The number in the middle of the Burst Gauge is an approximate percentage (in 10% increments) of how full the gauge is. Details about the burst is as follows:
- The Burst Gauge has 100,000 units.
- The Burst Gauge slowly fills over time, in which the rate increases with lower health:
| Health | Increment per frame | Time to fill (seconds) |
|---|---|---|
| H ≥ 55% | 10 | 166.7 |
| 40% < H ≤ 55% | 15 | 111.1 |
| H ≤ 40% | 20 | 83.3 |
This increment is in real-time: meaning that any hitstop and superflash will not pause the increment. Active Flow multiplies the rate gained by 4 while it lasts.
- The Burst Gauge also fills each time you get hit, the formula for which is:
(1- Current ProrationGiven as value between 1 and 0, which is the product of P1 of first hit, P2 of all subsequent hits (including this hit) and all the bonus prorations.) * DamageThe damage the move actually did. * 10 + 100
- This formula implies a few things:
- While burst gain scales with damage, it goes up as combos progress in comparison to the added damage.
- Moves that scale badly give back more burst meter.
- Moves that take advantage of minimum damage while the combo is scaling heavily can give back a lot of burst. Therefore, using an unnecessarily Distortion Drive to close a round (closing a game is fine) might not be the best for Burst economy.
- Contrary to some belief, Burst Gain from taking damage does not get multiplied during Active Flow.
- The burst gauge cannot refill during overdrive state. So, even if the overdrive timer has expired but an Exceed Accel or Overdrive Distortion Drive is currently being performed, the Burst Gauge will remain at exactly 30% until those moves have finished playing out.
Overdrive
Press 
+
+
+
while in a Neutral State to activate Overdrive. The activation animation is fully invincible and your character will enter a temporarily powered up state where their attacks gain additonal properties; typically their Drive-related abilities become stronger and their Distortion drives deal more damage. After Overdrive ends (or the round ends while in Overdrive), the Burst Gauge will start 30% filled.
More details on Overdrive can be found here.
Burst
Press +++ while in hitstun to Burst. Bursts are often used as a defensive tool to interrupt the opponent's combo or offensive momentum. Bursting consumes an entire Burst Gauge. More information on Bursts can be found here.
Active Flow
Once per round, your character portrait may start flashing pink while the announcer yells "Active Flow!". In Active Flow you gain several buffs described in depth here. Unfortunately there is a hidden meter for Active Flow. Many actions build Active Flow, but only certain actions can actually trigger Active Flow. The table below contains information on specific actions that build Active Flow.
BBCF/Frame Data
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