Dead Heat

"Down, down, down, and the flames went higher."

**Dead Heat** is a Fire, Silver Squigly variant.

**IMMOLATION**

## Tips and Tricks

### Role & Strategy

* Dead Heat is an offensive comeback variant that gains ENRAGE while under a certain health threshold, which she then can use to break through the opponent's guard with a special move. She has a high-risk, high-reward playstyle, rewarding players who can keep her under the threshold without dying with the ability to continuously go on the offensive.

* When using Dead Heat on the offense, it is recommended for players to utilize strategies that prevent her from dying through a single combo. This involves having a support such as Valentine with the TRAUMA CENTER Marquee Ability to provide FINAL STAND and prevent death while also providing access to Forbidden Procedure as a revival method for a backup strategy.
	+ An alternative strategy is to bring support fighters that can provide her with an alternative way to gain ENRAGE such as Rerun, Inner Pieces, or Oh Mai.

* As a Silver Squigly variant, Dead Heat may struggle in offense in high Prize Fight streaks given her lower than average ATK stat. While the stacks of ENRAGE can help, Dead Heat will mostly rely on her ability to constantly provide pressure through her unblockable special moves and chip the opponent slowly through Squigly's long chain of combos.
	+ While at first glance Dead Heat looks like she promotes heavy use of special moves, one or two special moves are usually enough due to Squigly's naturally long combos. SILVER CHORD is the main recommendation since it staggers no matter if it's charged or not, though DRAG 'N BITE while having at least one charge is also a good option.

* **Marquee Ability**: Either Marquee Ability works with Dead Heat since both conditions require her to be dead. EVIL DEAD can be useful on the offense to inflict both CURSE and WITHER, making it easier for the next fighter to defeat opponents. DEAD ALIVE is better to be used defensively, providing other teammates FINAL STAND to increase the longevity of your defensive fighters and stall for time.

* **Stat Investment**: For offense, Dead Heat will benefit from investment in ATK, Piercing and Meter Gain to increase her damage output and quickly charge her blockbusters. Special Cooldown can also be useful although Squigly's long combos make this usually unnecessary.

### Rift Battles

* Dead Heat may play a defensive role in Rift Battles to punish opponents with unblockable special moves. The Fire Catalysts, Rising Temperature and Fire Starter, can be used to provide an alternative method to gain ENRAGE without relying on the health drop. SILVER CHORD is particularly recommended when using Dead Heat in this role as it is a long-range projectile that can stagger opposing players, providing the AI a free attack. However, Dead Heat will require stat bonuses to make up for her lack of any defensive abilities. Hence, investment in HP, Defense and Meter Gain can be useful to increase her longevity in a fight.

### Trivia

* This variant is a reference to the strange, red-headed, unnamed girl in the survival horror game, *Au Sable* with its caption being a lyric to *Ring of Fire* that was popularized by Johnny Cash.

	+ SA1 (NEW): Gain 2 stacks of ENRAGE for 5 seconds every 10 seconds while below 25/35/50% HEALTH.
* SA2 (OLD): If your opponent has a fully charged BLOCKBUSTER and you do not, gain 1/2/3% BLOCKBUSTER METER per second.
	+ SA2 (NEW): 50/75/100% chance for SPECIAL ATTACKS to be UNBLOCKABLE while benefitting from ENRAGE.