Burst damage also has the added benefit in pvp of making the other guy panic when they see their health drop that fast.
…Humor, love it. btw, that’s why I don’t play PvP, panic stresses me. 
Forgive me for the mental image, but similar to what @taman999 said, I’ve always thought burst damage was more of a total damage threshold: at what point is the damage enough to make your pants burst…
Orendi. Orendi is burst damage. One minute Montana thinks he’s invincible because Miko’s pocketing him, next minute they get hit by two Shadowfire Pillars, an ult, and another Pillar, then they both rage quit. Burst damage.
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Don’t think they rage quit until after she starts poking at her eye though.
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Lol at pants bursting 
To build on what others have said: there is burst damage and sustained damage. Many BB characters fall into one camp or the other.
Burst damage typically means you can do a butt ton of damage very quickly, usually through skills, but will then have a cooldown period until you can do that big burst again.
Thorn is a prime example: her big combo uses up all three of her skills in a short sequence to burn an enemy down before they know what’s going on. Afterwards, Thorn has to wait for the Wrath of the Wild to cooldown before she can do this again. Orendi is similar.
Phoebe, on the other hand, is all sustained damage (ISIC is as well). While Phasegate is often used as a set up skill, its damage isn’t really required for Phoebe’s kill MO - super fast melee mixed with truestrike/crosscuts/etc. is more than enough to burn most BB down.
She always does, it’s mandatory 
I see what you did there…
Ha ha I swear that was unintentional. My go-to phrase is usually “metric f__k ton” but I didn’t want to annoy the censor bot 
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Censor bot is omniscient, censor bot is omnipotent, censor bot is LORD!
Even moreso than his/her/its eminence the snek?
Edit: I’m super tired and making no sense, ignore this post 
I know not what is this snek, the snek is a false idol. I am the SNEAK, I am the SNAKE, I am second ONLY to the censor bot. But I will assassinate and usurp him/her/it.
Curses on you for making me have to add /its to my previous post.
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LMAO, yes!
Burst damage meaning doing the highest amount of damage possible within a short time, or bursting your damage. Rather it be burn all your skills at once or unload awhole clip of just your tactical rounds, whatever it takes to get the highest damage possible in the smallest amount of given time (2 seconds from ghalts stun, 1 second from alani’s bubble, etc). You basically trade your sprint for a quick and fast dash to reach your goal.
The draw back to burst damage is that your overall DPS can lower over a given time, as you utilized all you could to get that max damage spike. Example, you unload a napalm, an airstrike and a napalm in a given area to take out a target, but you have 5 other targets now coming at you from behind, you have to rely on just bullet damage. Your quick dash turns into a slow stroll around the track as you got short winded from running so fast in the given time.
Basically it is high instantaneous damage (think mellka venom but all at once and not over time)
Burst damage is a single, generally high damage output that you inflict upon an opponent. Orendis Shadowfire Pillar is a perfect example; Hitting someone with a single Pillar is a burst of damage that you inflicted. If you use Mellka, however, her Machine Pistol is sustained damage- The opposite of burst damage, it requires you to sustain your line-of-sight and aim so you can cause large amounts of damage. Many people here are describing burst incorrectly and instead, describing an Alpha-Strike, where you are able to unload every damage output you have on an enemy as quickly as possible but only because you have the upper-hand/caught your opponent off-guard.
There are many line-blurring damage outputs in this game, many argue whether Thorn is sustained or burst with her arrows (Ignoring skills/ult) because many have resigned to Benedict being a burst damage hero, due to his predictable misses against competent players, effectively making his playstyle a bursty sort of play and not sustained
It’s damage done immediately.
Like Thorn ulti its 750 damage when its cast.
Damage over time is any damage done over X amount of seconds.
In counterpoint, “burst heal” is quick healing, or given all at once. Alani’s Wellspring, Reyna’s Vital Protocol.
Healing-over-time (HoT) or “tick healing” is Ambra’s Sunspots, Kleese’s nerfed Heal Chair.
Miko’s beam and Kleese’s OLD Heal Chair were pretty much both. Technically tick, but the ticks were big enough that they could get you back to full REALLY quickly.