Deadly Rave

Deadly Rave, also known as Deadly Rave Neo or Neo Deadly Rave is a reoccurring Super Special Move by Geese Howard and Rock Howard.

Description
Being a move based on Geese Howard's observation of the Kyokugen-Style's Ryuuko Ranbu technique used by Ryo Sakazaki, Robert Garcia and Takuma Sakazaki in his younger years (during the events of Art of Fighting 2), the user lunges at the opponent (normally by assuming a forearm-crossing stance across their chest akin to Geese's own spin on the Ryuuko Ranbu's initial stance). The lunge itself is normally Geese loosely holding both his hands apart from one another to cup energy in between them, akin to the Ja'eiken's animation.

If the lunge hits, the user performs a quick-but-strong series of attacks (not counting the lunge) before finishing with an explosive blast of qi/ki/chi via a either a single palm thrust (younger Geese) or a dual palm thrust (present Geese and Rock Howard). While its is a normal super in Art of Fighting 2, the Real Bout games and Wild Ambition make it (one of) Geese's P-Power Super(s) with full meter and low HP required to perform it.

However, what makes this super unique is what happens during it. In order to successfully use Deadly Rave, the player must manually input each required hit of the super, adding a twist to the typical ranbu-styled super; messing up the input series ends up forcing the sequence to be cut-short and often allows the attack to be 10 different attacks total (counting the lunge and final energy blast). Some games however, make the super automatic, forgoing the manual inputs (including in its debut in Art of Fighting 2 and by proxy, younger Geese in The King of Fighters Neowave). The animations per input have often varied across games, as well as the finishing blast itself varying between only having a single hit or multiple hits.

In the KOF series, there are times where such as in  '98 UM where the Deadly Rave has both a normal Super version and MAX Super version. Though in games such as CvS, CvS2, 2002 UM, KOF EX1, KOF Maximum Impact 2, Regulation 'A', and NGBC, it costs a total of 3 power stocks and/or is only a MAX Super instead. SvC Chaos has it as his EXCEED Super, while KOF 2002 's console versions have it as Geese's initial MAX2 DM (though Neowave makes it only a normal Super). KOF XI makes it a Leader Super/DM, making Geese one of the few characters that has 2 LDM's, but this particular LDM cannot be Dream-Cancelled-into due to costing 3 total bars instead of 2 like all others (and thus a Geese as the leader must at least lose one team member in order to have the resources necessary to DC-into-it).

Rock's version is known as the Deadly Rave Neo, and is often weaker and/or slower than his father's, but is still just as damaging at times. The main difference between this version and his father's is that normally Rock starts of with a stance where he slightly raises his leading arm in front of himself, obscuring his face somewhat (akin to one of his winposes), then instead runs after the foe for the initial connecting lunge (as opposed to Geese's Ja'eiken-esque rush). The finishing blow also puts quite a bit of recoil on Rock's hands as unlike his father's finisher, the energy is forcefully shot out from his said hands as opposed to being thrust at the victim. Like Geese's version, it often requires 3 power stocks in most of its appearances as Rock's strongest super.

In The King of Fighters XIV however, marks not only one of the very few times where Geese no longer even has this attack in his moveset in very few niche cases, but also when used only by his son Rock, that it now has a preset fully-cinematic connecting animation as opposed to a mere ranbu sequence that cycles through various animations.

In King of Fighters XV, Rock also now has a variation that exists alongside the original version in his moveset called Deadly Rave EXT which ends with Rock struggling to contain his own power (likely via Geese's influence) and unleashes a surge beyond his own control akin to the Raging Storm on the opponent and surrounding Rock's hands with chi, allowing him to deal more damage and adding extra properties to his other moves for the rest of the round he is active.

Strategy
While it's often rewarding to connect the manual-styled version of this iconic technique for a large amount of damage (being one of Geese's strongest attacks), it's also a viable strategy to instead end the sequence at only its second-to-last attack to generate plenty of hitstun (meant for the actual final blow) to allow the user to then combo off of it with a standard combo right afterwards, especially if they are able to have and/or acquire the resources to spare for another damaging meter-expending option.

While common in Geese's case and rare for Rock's case, Rock can indeed drop the final input of his Deadly Rave Neo intentionally to take advantage of the second-to-final blow's hitstun to perform a basic combo for arguably more damage (or even end combo into another super if there is meter to spare), just like his father.

Trivia

 * So far in 3 other games, the Deadly Rave's style of input itself is referenced by 3 other moves:
 * The Dragon Install: Sakkai/Morbid World from Arc System Works' fighting game series, Guilty Gear (via the Order-Sol).
 * The Raijin Enbu/Thunder God Dance used by Yu Narukami from another Arc System Works fighting game, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax.
 * The Gourai Senbu, used by Zen in Dimps' The Rumble Fish 2. This move uniquely however, unlike the other examples and the Deadly Rave itself, has 2 different finishers with varying purposes.