Two rates decide everything
Ultimate speed is not a mysterious feel. It is a percentage applied to output, plus a trickle that runs on a clock.
| Who | Damage dealt | Healing dealt | Passive |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vanguard, Duelist | 55% | 55% | 11 per second |
| Strategist | 50% | 65% | 8 per second |
| Bruce Banner | 150% | — | 10 per second |
| Monster Hulk | none | — | 12 per second |
Read the rows as instructions. A Duelist charges by fighting. A Strategist charges by healing, not by poking — 65% against 50% means a heal is worth 30% more energy per point than a shot. And two heroes are exceptions you can exploit or avoid: Banner builds almost three times faster than a normal Duelist, and Monster Hulk cannot build at all, only wait.
Taking damage does not charge your ultimate. That is the single most common wrong belief in this system. The one exception is Devil Dinosaur, whose passive hands 40% of incoming damage back to whoever dealt it.
The 100% wall is where charge actually leaks
Charge caps at 100% and does not bank. The moment the bar fills, every point you would have generated stops existing.
Price it out: a Duelist at full for 30 seconds forfeits 330 energy. Against a 3,400-cost ultimate that is about 10%. Against Venom’s 2,500-cost ultimate it is 13.2%. Cheap ultimates lose more from being held, which is the opposite of how most players treat them.
So the practical rule is not “save it for a good fight”. It is: spend it on the first fight that is even slightly worth winning, then start generating again.
Where charge vanishes
Three rules catch people:
- Switching heroes carries over a maximum of 50%. Swap at full and you hand back an entire ultimate’s worth of buildup.
- An interrupted ultimate refunds 50%, not 100%. A stun that cancels Doctor Strange’s Eye of Agamotto still leaves you half-charged.
- Round resets wipe you to zero in every mode except Domination, where energy carries between rounds.
That last one inverts the spending rule by mode. On an escort map, an unused ultimate at the end of a round is thrown away — spend it on a lost fight, it costs nothing. On Domination, an unused ultimate is an asset you carry forward.
What actually speeds you up
Four habits, in order of effect:
- Keep your output uptime high. Passive alone is 3:47 for a 2,500 ultimate and 10:00 for a 4,800 one. Output is what closes that gap.
- Heal as a Strategist instead of trading. 65% against 50% is a 30% difference on every point.
- Never sit at full. The cap makes holding strictly negative.
- Do not swap late. Swap early in a match or not at all.
The ultimate economy guide has the full cost table for all 53 heroes if you want to know your hero’s exact number, and the enemy ult timer page turns the same maths around to predict theirs.
If you are charging slowly because you are dying early, the cause is usually positioning rather than output — the positioning guide covers the nine-metre retreat rule that keeps you on the map long enough to build a bar.