Fire! Fire! Seishin Commands!

[Teniquette Zezernan]

"Seishin", more or less meaning "spiritual energy" in Japanese, are special commands that can be accessed by a character in the Super Robot Wars games to boost their own or their allies' abilities (and in some cases, decrease an enemy or enemies' abilities). Seishins are different depending on character, because it reflects their personality. The seishin commands can range from movement increase, to 100% lock-on, HP recovery, weapon power increase, resurrection, or a combination of a few together.

To learn more about seishins, please read through this section first to fully understand how, when, and where you use them.

The topics covered are as follows:

Types of seishin
Using seishin in a SC battle
Obtaining seishin

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There are many different types of seishin out there, and it is probably to hard pick out what you want, and what to specialize in. Thus, seishin are loosely separated into five types.

Offensive: These types of seishin increase your offensive power, through either increasing your own attack power, making your opponent easier to hit, or even dealing direct, unavoidable damage.

The following are classified as "offensive" seishin:
Hot Blood
Spirit
Direct Attack
Snipe Attack
Concentrate
Rage
Sure Hit
Inspire

Defensive: These types help reduce, and sometimes even avoid, damage. If you're going for the ultimate defense, be sure to stock up on these seishin.

The following are classified as "defensive" seishin:
Iron Wall
Flash
Concentrate
Vanishing Body
Resist
Accelerate
Substitute

Restorative: These seishin usually restore HP, but can also restore EN, ammunition, and sometimes even SP. If you're going for defense, these are a must.

The following are all "restorative" seishin:
Perserverence
Greater Perserverence
Trust
Friendship
Love
Resupply
Resurrection
Hope

Support: These increase parameters other than attack power or your own HP and EN. Obviously, they're used to augment your own abilities, and sometimes, those of your allies as well (either directly or indirectly).

The following are considered "support" seishin:
Great Effort
Lucky
Training
Bless
Aid
Provoke
Awaken
Exhaust
Move Again


Hybrid: These seishins give more than one different seishin effect per cast. However, because it gives you the chance of saving seishin slots and also giving you multiple seishin effects at the same time, these spells cost a hunk of UPs to purchase, and also cost alot of SP to cast (albeit at a lower cost than if you cast the spells individually).

The following are considered "hybrid" seishin:
Raid
Miracle

For more information on each individual seishin, please refer to the Seishin Thread in the B.E.L.

And there you have it. A complete list of what seishin fall into what category. May not make sense at first, but as you experiment, you'll find what suits your style. Choose wisely!

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Now that you know what seishins do, when do you use it in terms of the SC?

For this, we have ended up creating an entirely new phase: the "P.S. Phase." That's "P.S." as in "Psycho Spell," not "Post-Script."

So how does it work? Simple.

The P.S. Phase comes just before the Defense Phase. Here, you pick your seishin, state its effects (optional), and deduct your SP. The seishin now goes into effect, be it Flash, Iron Wall, Hot Blood, or even Exhaust. In cases where you can target other people (be it allies or enemies), you must state your target upon seishin usage.

Multiple seishin uses are allowed, provided you:

• Have sufficient SP to invoke the same seishin more than once that turn
• Are not casting the same seishin on the same person constantly (the only exceptions would be Trust, Friendship, and Love)
• Are not casting the same seishin on yourself, hoping for multiple instances of the same effect

Attempting to cast the same seishin on yourself (e.g., casting Flash multiple times to try and eke out free dodges) not only wastes SP, but only invokes the desired effect ONCE.

Another thing to note is the relationship between Hot Blood (damage dealt x 2) and Spirit (damage dealt x 3). In cases where one would attempt to cast both Hot Blood and Spirit, Spirit will ALWAYS overlap Hot Blood as the active damage modifier. This means that you don't get x 6 damage combined, but just triple damage from Spirit.

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So, how does one go about obtaining seishin? That's easy, actually: Amass UPs (see this thread on how to obtain UPs) and spend them on seishin. However, one thing must be kept in mind: You can only hold up to six seishin at one time.

If you would like to acquire a new seishin despite filling up all six slots, you must replace an old seishin of your choice with the new one. Simple as that.