Tutorials for the in-game System Mechanics of God Eater 3.
God Eater 3 has a lot of micro systems and things going on during gameplay. The game doesn’t do a very good job of explaining exactly what everything does beyond telling you to look at the in-game database. Therefore this post will explain all of the slightly more advanced systems in great detail. These systems are extremely important in enjoying God Eater 3 so please pay very close attention and read carefully until you fully understand how the game works.
Take note that all system mechanics in this post will be explained in conjunction with the default PS4 control scheme.
CONTENTS:
DIVE
The Dive mechanic is a high-speed shield bash that covers a large distance. Its performed by pressing R2+X and flings your character forward in the direction they are facing. If you are locked-on to an Aragami, you will automatically Dive in the direction of the target instead. Dive consumes stamina so use it carefully.
Dive is perfect for covering large distances in a short space of time. It can be used to travel, quickly move in on an Aragami or even reach Aragami that go beyond your jumping height (With lock-on). It can also be used as an emergency escape, but you have to make sure that you disengage lock-on first before you try to do this.
During the Shield Bash portion of the Dive, you can guard incoming attacks and can even Just Guard attacks if you time and space the Dive properly. If you input the Dive command while you are diving, you can cancel the action early.
If you are in Gun Form, using Dive will transition you back into Melee Weapon Form. Use this to dodge attacks incoming attacks or to return to the heart of battle after using long ranged attacks in Gun Form.
The amount of Stamina a single Dive consumes depends on the kind of Shield you are using. A Buckler uses a smaller amount of Stamina per Dive as opposed to a Tower Shield, so take this into account when you decide which kind of Shield type you would like to use.
*Dive can also be mapped to the D-pad left and right slots via the options menu.
DEVOUR
The main purpose of Devouring is to refill your Burst gauge (The Burst system is explained in the following section of this post).
There are three different types of Devour:
- Charge Devour [Performed by holding down Triangle on the ground]
- Slow charge time and recovery time
- Successful devour grants a full Burst Bar
- Quick Devour [Performed by pressing R1+Triangle on the ground]
- Quick startup time but relatively long recovery time
- Successful devour grants about 60% Burst Bar
- Air Devour [Performed by pressing R1+Triangle in the air]
- Quick startup time and relatively quick recovery
- Keeps you airborne for the entire move making it a very safe devour
- Successful devour grants about a 40% Burst Bar
The Devour is one of the most unsafe and risky attacks in the game. The rewards of the Devour are also only granted if you perform the entire Devour and its recovery animation without getting hit.
Since God Eater 3 is a game where the enemies attack constantly without letting you stand around, you have to learn how to exploit Aragami openings in order to Devour successfully.
The Quick Devour and Air Devour are the two Devours you should use most frequently. In most cases, they can be used from an attack’s blind-spot to safely Devour without getting hit. The Charge Devour should only be used when an Aragami runs away to get food, or when its been Downed or when there is an equally big opening.
Learning how to successfully Devour is really tricky since you need a good amount of experience to understand which kinds of an Aragami’s Attacks are punishable with a Devour and which aren’t.
Below I have written some very basic tips for learning how to safely Devour:
- If an Aragami has an attack with either long startup or long recovery times, get out of the attack’s hitbox and do a Quick Devour.
- If a teammate has the Aragami’s aggro, you may get behind the Aragami and devour easily because they will ignore everyone other than the player with the aggro.
- Always Devour on attacks you know for sure can be punished with a Devour. This is because you never know when a chance to fill your Burst gauge will come again.
- If an Aragami has an attack that hits the ground, you may be able to safely do an Air Devour.
- If an Aragami has a linear running or jumping attack, you may able to move just out of their movement trajectory and send a Quick Devour in the direction they’re moving.
- Don’t be afraid to test which attack can be punished with a quick devour, but once you know for sure there isn’t enough of an opening, stop attempting.
- When you become familiar with Devouring safely, try to establish a devouring rhythm that allows you to keep Burst and deal damage.
- When you start running low on Burst and desperately need to devour, try to not take dumb risks to maintain burst.
Of course, these tips are not the only things that will put you on track to having good Devour habits. Like I said above, Devouring successfully stems from your experience as a player. This means you should just play the game and look carefully at Aragami attacks for openings on when to devour.
It also helps to watch advanced players online fighting Aragami and carefully see how and when they Devour. Even if you end up watching a beginner online, think about what they could do to Devour better and try to apply it to yourself.
Devouring a Dead Aragami ‘s body will give you materials needed for crafting so never forget to do this.
*The Quick Devour can also be mapped to the D-pad left and right slots via the options menu.
BURST
Burst is the God Eater Series’ Mega Buff. Burst increases both your Attack and Defense and it allows you to use Burst Arts, Burst Plugins and Burst Units.
The kinds of benefits Burst grants are immense which make it desirable for all players to be in Burst at all times.
Your Burst Gauge is indicated at the bottom of the screen by a gauge that reads “LEVEL” on top of a Red bar.
The ‘LEVEL‘ indicates what your current Burst Level is and the bar that constantly drains underneath it, indicates your Burst Duration.
Burst Duration & Staying In Burst
A Full Burst Bar has a Burst Duration of roughly 60 seconds. In this time, the Bar will constantly drain and dwindle down. When the Burst Bar empties and your Burst Duration reaches zero, Burst will end and you will lose all of the benefits of Burst. Dying during Burst or getting devoured by an Aragami will also end your Burst.
In order to replenish your Burst Bar and stay in Burst, you must land successful Devours, consume Burst Inducers or receive Link Burst Bullets from your teammates. You may also use the PGC Burst Unit which allows you to regain Burst via Perfect Guarding (Added in 1.20)
As explained in the previous section of this post, landing successful Devours is the primary way of maintaining Burst. Each Devour replenishes the Burst Bar and extends your Burst Duration. But since the Burst Gauge continuously empties, you must always be on the lookout for openings to Devour and get Burst.
Burst Inducers are special items that can be crafted from the terminal. They consume a little bit of your HP in order to replenish your Burst Bar. This is a very effective way to maintain Burst as using an item is both faster and a lot less risky than Devouring. Burst Inducers can only be crafted, but thankfully, the materials needed to create them can be purchased from the Travelling Merchant, Hope. As such, its recommended that you purchase all materials required to craft Burst Inducers from Hope when she has them. The items needed to create Burst inducers are listed below:
Burst Inducer [Gains 50% Burst Bar]
- Chinese Herb(漢方) x1
- Aragami Extract (アラガミエキス) x1
Burst Inducer II[Gains a Full Burst Bar]
- Burst Inducer x1
- Amrita (アムリタ) x1
The other way of refilling your Burst Bar, is by receiving Link Burst Bullets from your teammates. In addition to granting you a filled Burst Bar, receiving a Link Burst Bullet also increases your Burst Level. Burst Level is explained in more detail below.
Burst Level & Getting Burst 3
There are 3 Burst Levels. Each level of Burst further increases the benefits of Burst. As such, its natural that we would want to be in Burst 3 all the time since its the max Burst Level.
The only way to increase your Burst Level, its to receive Link Burst Bullets from your teammates. Likewise, Firing your Link Burst Bullets at a teammate will increase their Burst Level.
Link Burst Bullets are obtained as a sub-product when you perform a successful Devour. A Charge Devour gains 3 Link Burst Bullets and Quick & Air Devours gain 1. The maximum amount of Link Burst Bullets you can carry is 3. But some equipment & Burst Units have special skills that allow you to increase the maximum amount of Link Burst Bullets you can hold.
Your Link Burst Bullets are indicated on the right side of the screen above your normal bullets:
Firing your Link Burst Bullets at teammates and increasing their Burst Level can be done by going into Gun Form and Holding R1 and pressing Triangle while aiming at a teammate. The Triangular cross-hair that appears on your teammates indicates which teammate you will fire the bullet at:
Your teammates Burst Levels are indicated by the red arrows next to their names on the top right HUD:
Each Link Burst Bullet is worth 1 Burst Level. If your teammate is on Burst Level 1 and you fire two Link Burst Bullets at them, they will be in Burst 3. If you fire a link Burst Bullet at a teammate who already has Burst 3, you will fill their Burst Gauge and extend their Burst Duration.
Link Burst Bullets have no other uses so make sure to fire them at your teammates and share in the holy hot sauce that is Burst 3. Even if every player already has Burst 3, continue to spread those bullets around to help your teammates out in maintaining Burst,
Unfortunately, you can only give Burst Levels to your teammates and receive Burst Levels from them in the same way. You cannot give Burst 3 to yourself. This means that if you play Solo or if you play with teammates you who don’t use Link Burst Bullets, you are doomed to be in Burst 1.
If you do end up playing with teammates who don’t send Link Burst Bullets around, there is an Accel Trigger (B>>Predator) that allows you to give Burst 3 to yourself.
Share this post. Explain Burst to your friends. Ask them for Link Burst Bullets. Threaten to delete their game data. Blackmail them by telling their loved ones about their eros stash. Hold their families hostage. Do whatever it takes to have your teammates hit you with Link Burst Bullets. If everyone in the world just took 5 seconds out from the battle to shoot a couple of these bullets at their friends, so many more people would be in Burst 3.
Do it for your friends. Do it for the love of DPS. Do it because you want someone to do it to you. Do it because it needs doing. Do it for the Burst-less kids in the Far East who have never had Burst in their lives.
Please. I beg you.
USE YOUR LINK BURST BULLETS AND GIVE YOUR TEAMMATES BURST 3.
Note: Hugo and the Online Avatars are fairly good at sharing bullets with you too.
**There is a way to give Burst 3 to yourself using the Engage Link system explained later in this post.
BURST ARTS
Burst Arts are essentially special moves that are outlets for your main source of melee damage. You can equip three different types of Burst Arts onto Ground, Step and Jump attacks respectively. This means you effectively have 3 kinds of special moves to use during battles.
Each Burst Art can be leveled up by using it repeatedly and the more you level up different Burst Arts, the more unlock for each weapon type. As an individual Burst Art increases in Level, it’s effectiveness increases as well. Level 5 is the max burst Art level.
Burst Arts can greatly change the way you would play a weapon so its highly recommended that players really experiment with different Burst Arts and find what suits their playstyles. There is a training mode room that can be reached from the Burst Art Edit screen by pressing the Options button. Use this to mix and match your Burst Arts until you find a set you like.
You can find a list of all Burst Arts on each corresponding weapon’s Weapon Overview Page.
Accompanying Burst Arts, are Burst Art Effects. These are additional effects tacked on to the core Burst Art that change the after-effect of the attack. You can fire off projectiles or pillars of light, create energy beams, explosions or send a shockwave through the ground.
Burst Art Effects add another layer of customization to Burst Arts that players are encouraged to experiment with. Even if you have the Burst Arts you like on the weapon you like, you can still edit those Burst Arts further by changing what they do how they attack.
You can find a list of Burst Art Effects here:
ACCEL TRIGGER
Accel Trigger is a a temporary buff that triggers when certain battle conditions are fulfilled. There are many different kinds of Accel Triggers with different kinds of activation requirements and effects which can be set from the EQUIP menu in the terminal. You may only have one Accel Trigger equipped so make sure you choose carefully.
Its worth mentioning that the Accel Trigger increases are huge and its highly recommended that players find ways to activate their Accel Triggers as often as possible.
Some examples of activation conditions of Accel Triggers include:
- Take no damage for a set amount of time
- Land a set amount of successful Devours
- Guard a set amount of attacks
- Land a set amount of combo finishers
- Give a set amount of Link Burst Bullets to your teammates
Some examples of the buffs rewarded for fulfilling the conditions of Accel Triggers include:
- Melee attack damage increases
- Burst Arts attack damage increases
- Attack speed increases
- Defense increases
- Increased OP gain
All of the buffs that Accel Triggers give you last for around twenty seconds or so. They have very short duration, but the increases they grant are extremely big making it very worthwhile to take the time out to level them up or select ones that complement your playstyle.
If you fulfill the conditions for an Accel Trigger again while its already been activated, it will activate again and the duration will be reset (in most cases).
Like Burst Arts, Accel Triggers level up the more you use them. As Accel Triggers of a certain type level up, they unlock more of that type and the more you level an individual Accel Trigger, the more its effectiveness will increase. Also like Burst Arts, the max Accel Trigger level is 5.
You can find a full list of all the Accel Triggers here:
ENGAGE LINK
Engage Link allows you to temporarily link up with your teammates in order to gain access to a special Engage-only skill you set via the EQUIP menu. The Engage Link skills are incredibly good and players are encouraged to pick ones that accentuate their play-style or complement their teammates Engages.
New Engage skills can be unlocked by completing the 8-Player Online Assault Missions. Engage skills can be purchased using EP which is earned from clearing these 8-Player Assault Missions.
As you fight in close proximity with a teammate, a yellow circular gauge above the respective teammate’s head slowly fills up. As the gauge is completely filled ‘ENGAGE START‘ will appear on the gauge and this means you are ready to perform Engage Link with the respective teammate. Pressing L2+R2 starts the Engage Link.
You may only Engage with one teammate at a time and when Engaged, both players get access to both Engage Link skills set by each respective player. In most cases, you may use this to stack same-skills to double their benefits with your friends.
While Engaged, Players also share a Burst Gauge and share Accel Triggers should you activate them.
This means that you can use Engage Link to give Burst 3 to yourself. Simply Engage with a teammate, then give them Link Burst Bullets. Since your Burst Gauges are shared, both of you will end up in Burst 3.
If either player dies or gets devoured/corrupted by an Aragami when they are Engaged, Engage Link will end.
You can find a full list of Engage Link skills here:
**The Engage Start action can also be mapped to the D-pad left and right slots via the options menu.
ARAGAMI ABILITIES
Increases Gun damage to the specific type of Aragami you have Devoured. This increase only applies to one type of Aragami. So if you devour another Aragami, you will have increased Gun damage to the Aragami you last devoured.
THE BULLET EDITOR
The Bullet Editor is a complex creation tool that allows you to create Custom Bullets for use in real combat. The kinds of Bullets you can create are mind-boggling if you are willing to learn how the creation systems work. When creating Custom Bullets, you can edit the trajectory, element type, module type, what happens when it hits, whether you want it to have debuffs, whether you want it to heal allies and much, much more.
Custom Bullets don’t use OP when fired and they have their own dedicated 4 slots separate from normal bullets. Custom Bullets can also be used with all gun types regardless of how they are constructed. The Bullet Editor offers a lot of freedom in the kinds of Custom Bullets you can make but not without some restrictions that keep it from breaking the game.
The main such restriction is the COST system. Custom Bullets don’t use OP, but instead impose a COST value onto each module you use when you are making the Custom Bullet. The stronger the module, the more the COST racks up. When you are done creating the bullet, the net COST of all its modules dictate how many shots of the bullet you will be able to equip.
This is different from normal bullets in that Custom Bullets don’t use OP, but you can only equip as many shots of a Custom Bullet as according to the COST LIMIT. This means that you will only be able to equip a small amount of shots of a very strong Custom Bullet. Which essentially means that you can’t rely on Custom Bullets one-sidedly as your primary source of damage since they have a hard upper limit.
Aside from the COST restriction, you can only use up to 8 modules per Custom Bullet and with each non-deco module you install, the damage will decrease by 10% each time. Deco modules are modules that have no hitboxes and serve to simply carry payloads. In this case, you have to carefully think about whether you want to power up a certain Custom Bullet further by adding more modules, or just opt to fire it twice since sometimes that may deal more damage.
I may cover the Bullet Editor in more detail somewhere else on this site, but for now, this is it for this post. Please take your time reading this and make sure you’ve read everything here until you have a good understanding of the game’s mechanics.
If you don’t understand God Eater 3’s mechanics, there’s a chance you won’t enjoy the game.
Thank you for reading.