PVP Burst Energy Generation

This guide has been created by awesome21snake. If you have any feedback about the guide, catch him on our Discord!

Before going anywhere near charts, numbers and calculations, I will try to explain all the terminologies that people use when talking about Burst Gen. I would like to thank this epic NGA pvp guide for their burst gen calculation ideas, Nikke.gg for their basic definitions, along with the amazing PvP specialists in our maid team of Nikke Community Server: cleancascade, Scy_v4x, KosMiu, who helped to perfect PvP burst gen calculation; and zixk98 for helping with the new PvP charts.

Burst energy gauge/bar

The burst gauge is what needs to be filled in order to get to full burst. Burst energy is used to fill the burst gauge. The following flowchart shows the stages the burst gauge goes through:

Empty Burst gauge

Burst gauge after Nikkes hit shots on opponents - generating burst energy

Burst gauge when it becomes full (B1, B2 and then B3 stage)

Full Burst stage which slowly drains

When the burst gauge meter fills to full, your burst 1 character will start the burst chain and use her burst. One character each will burst in order from burst 1 -> burst 2 -> burst 3. In auto mode, which is the mode in pvp, units on the left (i.e. units who are in positions prior to the other units from left to right) will take priority when there are two or more of the same burst type.

In the case above, Liter would burst first since she was in position 2 while Jackal was in position 4. Similarly, Scarlet would burst instead of Noir because Scarlet is in position 1 while Noir is in Position 5. Note: There is a delay between appearance and activation of each Burst Stage.

With this, we can now move on to what burst energy is and how it works for different Nikkes in pvp.

Burst energy generation/Burst gen/Burst energy

Every time a Nikke lands a hit, they generate burst energy. It is important to note that this is per hit, so RL hits can generate more burst gen naturally since they hit more than one opponent in normal situations. Each unit has a specific burst gen per hit value. Some units generate more burst energy than others, even if they are of the same weapon type. Exact values will be discussed later.

Note: Extra hits (Modernia s2) and counter attacks (Scarlet s2 or Jackal s1) count as hits, and generate the same burst gen value as the Nikke’s base burst gen value.

Different weapon types generate more energy per hit. It is important to bring enough burst energy generation since faster bursts have an easier time winning in PvP.

Weapon Type	Burst Gauge Generation	Units
Rocket Launcher (Clip RL)	Very high energy generation
Shotgun (Clip SG)	High energy generation
Rocket Launcher (Mag RL)	Good energy generation	All other Rocket Launchers (some anomalies like Pascal or A2 who generate High burst gen)
Shotgun (Mag SG)	Some energy generation	All other Shotguns
Sniper Rifle	Low energy generation	Sniper Rifles (some anomalies like Nihilister or Harran who can generate High Burst Gen)
Assault Rifle	Very Low energy generation	Assault Rifles (some anomalies e.g. Scarlet who generates Good burst gen)
Submachine Gun	Poor energy generation	All Submachine Guns (some anomalies e.g. Ludmilla who generates Low burst gen)
Machine Gun	Poor energy generation	All Machine Guns (some anomalies e.g. Modernia who generates Low Burst gen)

How Burst gen for units is calculated for different weapon types

This has been explained before in The Basics

• RL hitting P1/P5 can cause AOE damage to 4 targets which are P1+P2+P1 cover+P2 cover, so the burst gen of that particular RL is 4× her normal burst gen value; RL hitting P2/P3/P4 can cause AOE damage to 6 targets. Therefore, it is 6× the normal burst gen of the Nikke.
• RL and SR can enter cover between shots and can dodge incoming projectiles of opponent RLs. We call this phenomenon "Rocket whiffing" or “i-framing”. If this event occurs, the fire focus party will lose tremendous amounts of burst gen, and this can be the deciding factor of a win or a loss in 95% of matchups.
• Some Nikkes have skills that can give extra burst gen, such as Scarlet’s skill 2, Jackal’s skill 1, Harran’s skill 1, Modernia’s skill 1. The charging amount that is triggered once is the basic energy, Scarlet: 0.45, Jackal: 3.55, Modernia: 0.05, Harran: 2.9.
• Nihilister, A2, and Pascal are special Nikkes in their weapon types:
• Nihilister has higher burst gen than other SRs due to her skills. Second shot onwards, Nihilister gets pierce, damages cover and Nikke and that counts as hitting 2 enemies, and then she deals extra damage to both cover and Nikke due to her skill 2, hitting 4 times every shot.
• A2 is a slower shooting RL than other RLs. She shoots 2 bullets for every 3 bullets normal RLs shoot. However due to her base splash radius being higher than other RLs, she hits P1+P2+P3+cover of all 3, making her burst gen 6× the normal burst gen per shot.
• Pascal is an automatic RL. His base burst gen value is lower than other RLs but she shoots faster than them. Pascal shoots 6 bullets for every 3 bullets normal RLs shoot. However, he wastes one of his bullets by hitting the ground due to an ongoing bug. Thanks to Keripo for publicising this!
• Dual-wielders like Noah, Soline, Crow and Quency shoot only from one gun in PvP, and thus their burst gen is halved.

I believe we now should have a decent understanding of what Burst energy is, and how it is different for each Nikke. I think it’s time to understand how we define the speeds in which teams burst in PvP Arena.

Since the burst gen of different Nikkes varies a lot, weapons that can generate a large amount of burst gen are often used as measurement units to calculate the burst gen of a particular team. These weapons are Rocket launchers and Clip shotguns.

Note: Reaching Full Burst Gauge means reaching the B1 stage, not reaching full burst.

• A high-speed team generally refers to a team that can reach full burst gauge when the third shot of "1s charge time RL" is hit, abbreviated as: “3RL team”.
• A very high-speed team generally refers to a team that can have a full burst gauge with 2 shots of "1s charge time RL". The team that can reach full burst when the second shot hits, are referred to as: “2 RL team”.
• Teams that can get to a full burst gauge when Clip SGs shoot 5 times are referred to as: “5SG or 2.5RL team”.
• The term 2.5RL is used since they burst between 2RL and 3RL teams.

Note: 2 shots of 1s charge time RL does not mean 2 seconds. Due to delays in RL travel time and RLs going into cover for a few frames, it is actually ~2.5 seconds. Additional Note: 2RL does not mean that there are 2 Rocket Launchers in the team. If you think that, please read this page again!!

Now similarly, a 4RL team will be a team that gets a full burst gauge in 4 RL shots. And a 3.5RL team will be a team that can get a full burst gauge between 3 and 4RL shots. A 3.5RL team will also be called the 7SG team (i.e. a team that reaches full burst gauge in 7 SG shots).

Note: Teams that are slower than 4RL are not recommended for use, since they take too long to give any positive output.

The following is a ranking of the speeds,

Additional information: 2RL≈4SG, 3RL ≈ 6SG shots, 4RL ≈ 8SG shots.

I believe everyone should know now how the speeds of teams are named, which teams are fast and which teams are slow.

With the following Burst Gen Value Charts, a team's Burst Speed can be accurately calculated. The following table does not take into account:

• Rocket whiffing/i-framing
• Charge Speed
• Quantum Relic Cube
• Situations where RL only hits 1 or 3 opponents, and
• the situation where cover disappears.

It assumes the following:

• Scarlet has enough ammo to constantly shoot during the time duration.
• Pascal has enough ammo to constantly shoot during the time duration.
• Anis: Sparkling Summer has a resilience cube and no extra ammo through OL gear or Harmony Cubes.

Note: Due to this, teams with no Max Ammo Overload gear stat on Scarlet, non-Wingman cube or no Max ammo Overload gear stat on Pascal, or non-reload cube Anis:SS may have lower burst than what you calculate using this chart.

Jackal, Scarlet, and Harran have a “+” sign in front of her burst gen value, since they produce extra burst gen due to their skills. Additional Burst gen of Scarlet and Harran is RNG based, while Jackal’s is definitive under certain conditions which will be explained later. Hence, Jackal’s extra burst gen is of high value and the reason why “Jackal feed charts” exist.

Select 5 Nikkes. If the sum of the corresponding values is greater than 100, then this team will have Burst Speed equal to what is mentioned in the title of the Burst Gen Value Chart.

TLDR: If sum of values of 5 Nikkes in team > 100, Speed of team = Speed mentioned in Chart title.

Lvl 1, Lvl 3, Lvl 7 Quantum Cubes have the following set of values respectively: 2.33%, 3.5%, 4.66%. Randomly putting this cube is useless, but using it to increase a burst Gen Tier is possible. (e.g if your Burst Gen Speed in a Tier has a Value of 99.8, using a lvl3 cube on Laplace will make the Value 100.2, and hence it will upgrade Burst Gen Speed Tier).

Any Nikke with this cube equipped will have her burst gen increased by x% (value of Quantum Cube), according to the burst gen of the Nikke in the Value Charts for the respective speeds.

Examples:

• Laplace Burst Gen in 3RL speed: 17.4; in 4RL: 23.2
• After lvl3 cube is equipped, Laplace Burst Gen in 3RL speed = 17.4 × 102.33% = 17.8
• After lvl7 cube is equipped, Laplace Burst Gen in 4RL speed = 23.2 × 104.66% = 24.2

Lightning fast burst speed Value Chart

For a team that fully charges when 2 RL shots hit, around 2.5 seconds to fill gauge.

Very Fast Burst Speed Value Chart

For teams that fully charge when 5 SG shots hit (2.5RL).

Fast Burst Speed Value Speed Chart

For full gauge in 3 RL shots.

Slow Burst Speed Value Chart

For full gauge in 7 SG shots (3.5RL).

Very Slow Speed Value Chart

For full gauge in 4 RL shots.

This is a section dedicated to Jackal feed, and there's a reason for that: Jackal is one of the most meta-defining Nikkes in PvP, due to how fast she is by virtue of being a clip RL, but mostly due to her skills.

Essentially, her skill 1 generates 355 energy (or 3.55% of the burst gauge) every time she is hit 10 times, and since she shares damage with 2 targets due to skill 2, it makes it so that the enemy is pretty much guaranteed to feed Jackal.

This heavily cripples any MG not called Rosanna, basically every SMG, all SGs and also makes ARs suffer a bit, since she can get extremely high feeds from those high fire rate Nikkes. On top of it, pairing her with Scarlet means that Scarlet will be pretty much guaranteed to get the damage share, so those same high fire rate Nikkes won't only make the Jackal team burst extremely fast, but they will also take heavy damage from Scarlet's S2 (this also applies to other units that proc on hit such as Emma, Maiden, Nero, etc but is less relevant to these units as Jackal and Scarlet defines the current PvP meta. Also note these self procs such as Emma and Maiden do not generate extra burst gauge, but do give other benefits). This makes it so SGs are usable as long as they're not facing a Jackal (or Makima, depending on her position), and pretty much any weapon type that's not a SR or RL suffers to varying degrees against Jackal. If you have Jackal, you're using her in both attack and defence, her existence alone restricts what weapons are viable unless they have kits designed to counter her.

Now that the introduction is out of the way. We need to know how much extra energy Jackal provides us with. We will only be looking at 2RL, 2.5RL and 3RL charts, since if you are using Jackal and still have a burst slower than 3RL even after you have added Jackal Feed values, you should change that team in our opinion.

To calculate additional Burst Gen provided by Jackal, we use feed charts. Feed charts will show the number of shots when P1 only is linked with Jackal, and another chart where P1 and P2 are linked with Jackal.

Know which chart to use please. Jackal Feed is usually used to find if your team’s Burst Speed Tier is increasing. So if your team is currently 3RL, you should find the Jackal Feed values for 2.5RL, and add them to what your team’s Burst Gen Speed Value would be for 2.5RL. If it’s > 100 in 2.5RL, then Jackal made your team faster, otherwise this is useless.

Pick your chart. Add the values from your feed chart of the 5 Nikkes from the opponent team. Divide them by 10. Round down to the nearest integer (so 4.4 becomes 4). And multiply this value by 3.55. This will be the additional burst gen provided by Jackal.

TLDR: Extra Burst gen from Jackal = Sum of the values from Feed charts (i.e number of shots) of Nikkes from the opponent team hitting your Jackal Linked Nikkes or vice versa. Divide the sum by 10. Round down to the nearest integer. Multiply by 3.55.

Feed charts

The following are the feed charts for their corresponding speeds. In team-building, you want a situation where the opponent Jackal is getting low feed, while your Jackal is getting high feed. Thanks to zixk for making these charts!

2RL feed chart

P1 Linked only

2RL feed chart

P1+P2 Linked

2.5RL feed chart

P1 Linked Only

2.5RL feed chart

P1+P2 Linked

3RL Feed Chart

P1 Linked Only

3RL Feed Chart

P1+P2 Linked

Your team

Enemy team

Assumptions: For both teams, P1 and P2 are linked. Only P1 and P2 are being hit till full burst. No quantum cubes present. General assumption is no target skipping occurs.

A highly recommended alternative is the Burst Gen Calculator by KosMiu.

In the calculator, you only need to input the names of the Nikkes in each team, and it will give the following information about the team:

• Current Burst Gen Speed Tier of the team
• Burst Gen Speed Value in each Tier of the team (i.e. the Sum of Burst Gen Values of each Nikke in a Speed Tier)
• Bullets shot in each Tier of the team (i.e. the Sum of all values in Jackal Feed charts for each tier), which you just need to divide by 10, round down and multiply by 3.55 to find the extra Burst gen being provided in case Jackal is being used.

Hence, these tedious calculations are a thing of the past, just make a copy of this amazing calculator and make your lives easier!

You can use this calculator to find the Burst Speed of your team. It also has Feed chart values automatically summed for you as “Bullets in each Tier”! You just need to divide the appropriate number by 10, round down and multiply by 3.55, and then add the value to the final Burst Gen Value for the same tier! Not only that, it also has Quantum Relic Cube calculations automatically added for you! It is honestly a life-saver.

Make a copy for yourself and read the instructions given on the sheet to get started. Notes by the Creator: “For burst generation estimations of your team and opponent's team please use the spreadsheet below. if the data tables become missing please refresh the page and they will repopulate from the source sheet”.

Link to Calculator: Burst Gen Calculator

When talking about burst gen, it would be criminal to not talk about the infamous rocket whiffing.

This is currently all we know about rocket whiffing:

Since Burst Gen is per hit, Rocket whiffs = No Burst Gen since the Rocket projectiles completely miss. Rocket launchers, while being incredibly powerful, can whiff their bullets on other rocket launchers or snipers, this is dependent on 3 known factors:

• Factor 1: The Nikke's charge speed (this can lead to permanent rocket whiffing against an opponent),
• Factor 2: The position of the Nikke shooting and the position of Nikkes being shot at (refer to image and explanation below),
• Factor 3: The projectile speed of the Nikke shooting (for example Laplace's projectile travels faster).

There is a 4th factor that is currently unknown, suspected to be different loading time/network connections to servers which causes repeat battles back to back to have varying results. Another possible factor is that the Nikke shoots when changing targets (e.g. if the Nikke starts to focus on P2 instead of P1 while charging her shot).

The main problem with tuning speeds is we currently do not possess the exact data to formulate breakpoints for causing whiffing in each position. and the fact that you cannot check the stats of your opponent's Nikkes to know their charge speed modifiers without estimating based on fighting against them. Hence, we just leave rocket whiffing to RNG and hope that it never happens to us.

If anyone wants to know how we reached the values of each Nikke in the Burst Gen Speed Value charts, this section is for them. Each value corresponds to the percentage of the burst gauge that Nikke has filled.

This value is calculated by using the Base Burst Gen Value, which we found through multiple sources, the major one being Dotgg.gg/Nikke. This burst gen value was multiplied by the number of shots at 30fps. Then multiplied by the number of targets it is hitting. This gives us the answer.

For example, for finding Laplace’s Burst Gen Value for 3RL chart:

• Base Burst Gen Value: 1.45
• Number of shots: 3
• Number of Targets: 4
• 1.45 × 3 × 4 = 17.4, which is the number you’ll find in the 3RL chart.

Hence, Laplace will fill 17.4% of the burst gauge after 3RL shots hit.

I believe all the major mechanics have now been adequately described. This is everything we have found out about PvP till Tia’s banner, and I can only hope I did not miss any key points worth knowing. Do contact us in the Nikke Community Server or Prydwen’s very own Discord Server if you want to discuss PvP with us!

Now, we will move on to what PvP team-building is all about.

Basic Team-building & Meta