Ultimates
When to use your ultimate: more and earlier in the lower ranks, then tracking theirs and planning yours with your team so you don't spend them all at once.
At every rank
Most held ults are wasted ults
Most players hold their ultimate too long. An ult you die with is a fight it wasn't used in, and one you hold through a whole fight is one fewer you'll get this match. A ready ult wins the next fight or saves a lost one: look for the next fight to use it in.
There's rarely a perfect moment. A good one, used now, beats a perfect one that never comes.
What makes a good moment
- Your team can follow it up: they're close and alive.
- The enemy is where your ult works and can't easily get out of it.
- You're in a spot to use it from: set up first, then press it. The same ult from spawn or into a spread-out team does little.
- Their answers are gone: the ability or ult that would stop yours has been used.
Theirs matter too
Keep a rough count of the enemy's ultimates. A fight they've just spent two ults on is a fight to win back fast; a fight where they have everything ready is one to play carefully, or to make them spend first.
At your rank
What matters changes as you climb. Pick your rank to open that section. We'll remember it next time.
Bronze and Silver2 tips
Use it much more often
Players at these ranks use their ultimate a few times a match when they could use it many more. Press it when a fight starts and the enemy is in range. Even used just to survive, it's better than dying with it.
Use it with your team
Where you can, use it as your team goes in, not alone as a last-second panic because a teammate is low.
Gold and Platinum2 tips
More, and earlier
- Use your ultimate at the start of the next fight instead of waiting for a perfect one. For an ult that hits an area, three enemies together is good enough.
- When your team is a player up, use it then: that's when it costs the enemy most.
- If the enemy keeps getting theirs before you've used yours, you're holding too long.
Pick the target
For a single-target ult, go for an isolated or distracted enemy, not one standing with teammates who can help.
Emerald and Diamond2 tips
Track their ultimates
- Know which big enemy ults are up, and play spread out or keep your escape against them.
- React to theirs with yours when yours counters it, but don't always wait to go second.
- Use yours to win the fight, not only to answer theirs: going first takes their ult's value away.
Save one for the last fight
Near the end of a round (the last stretch of the map, or overtime coming), hold your ult for the fight that decides it. Earlier in the round, use it.
Master to Champion2 tips
Plan them with your team
- Don't dump all your team's ults into one fight: if it still goes wrong, you have nothing left for the next.
- Pair ults that combo and call it. Otherwise agree who ults this fight, so two don't overlap.
- You can also hold yours, make the enemy spend theirs first, then win the next fight.
Know your cues and press it
Set clear cues for your ult: your team can follow, the enemy is in a space you can use it on, and they can't get out. When all three are there, use it straight away; waiting is when it gets wasted.
Find the habit in your own games
After every match, Hardstuck's match review points out ultimates held too long, how quickly you used your ultimate and deaths with your ultimate ready, and links each one to this guide in the app, opened at your rank.