Blender Wrote:
Contrary, if you can win with an X-Ray combo in the first round, I feel like you should use that oppurtunity unless it's a wasted effort (50% vs. 10-15%)
You build up meter all throughout the second, you force the opponent to use meter in the second (maybe even an X-Ray of their own) and have a mental recovery of not being pressured into a do-or-die situation.
Maybe DarkPassenger or someone else can enlighten us more? Hint hint wink wink nudge nudge.
Blender is right on, though I think PenguinIceNinja is referring to a blow out situation, where his/her opponent is facing a huge health deficit and throws out an X-Ray that, even if it hits, does not even up the health. Using an X-Ray in the first round is a good move in the following situation:
Opponent has equal to or less than the amount of health that your X-Ray deals in damage, and your opponent has two bars of meter or more. Once an X-Ray begins, your opponent cannot break it, so if you are down in health, have an opening, if you do a normal combo and save your meter, they may break it, and you will still be down in health. But if you do the X-Ray off the opening, they cannot break, so you will take the round.
The only time I wouldn't X-Ray, when in the above situation, is if you have a huge health lead, because in that case you may want to do a breakable combo to draw out a breaker from your opponent, leave them with little meter remaining, and still have a good chance of closing out the round and going into round 2 with full meter.
X-Rays should be primarily used for the purpose of unbreakable damage. Also, you should learn how to do X-Rays as early as possible in a combo (like second hit), so that if you get an opening, the opponent will not have a chance to break it--if you do it at the end of combos, it gives them a chance to break, but also damage scaling kills the X-Ray.
Unless closing out a round, think of X-Rays like this:
X-Rays on average do 32% damage when performed alone. When performed at the end of combos, they usually only add 7-12%. They cost three bars of meter.
Compare that to breakers, which cost two bars of meter, but will save you the amount of health that your opponent can deal, which is on average above 30%.
Saving yourself 30% health is really the same as dealing 30%, so breakers are better overall, however, X-Rays can close out a round with unbreakable damage, so their use should mainly apply there.
