Energy & Cooldowns

Three resources control the cadence of every fight: Energy (caps Ultimate uptime), CD (caps single-skill spam), and Speed (decides who acts first).

1 000 Max Energy Triggers Ultimate
10 000 Speed baseline Higher = earlier turn
+30 Basic attack Energy gained per hit

Energy: the Ultimate gauge

Every character has an Energy meter that fills from a starting value up to a hard cap of 1,000. When the bar reaches 1,000, that character's Ultimate fires automatically. The bar carries between waves but resets at battle start.

Starting Energy varies by character

Most characters start a fight with 0 Energy, but some begin with a head-start:

Most R / SR characters(Empty bar at battle start) 0
Jonathan Joestar (SR)(Starts with 20% of the bar filled) 200
Giorno Giovanna (SSR)(40% filled at start) 400
Ermes Costello (SSR)(60% filled at start — ult fires after ~8s) 600

A character starting with 600 Energy and 25 regen per second can fire their Ultimate within 8-10 seconds of battle start. A character starting at 0 with 20 regen per second takes 25+ seconds without other energy sources. This is one of the hidden advantages of some characters.

Energy sources during the fight

Three things refill the Energy bar:

  • Basic attacks grant +30 Energy per hit, universally across all characters.
  • Active skills grant +50 Energy on cast, but have their own cooldown.
  • Passive regen per second varies by character — typically 15-25 Energy per second.

A typical Energy regen rate for a free-attacking character is about 40-50 Energy/second (basic-attack ticks + passive regen + occasional active casts). At that rate, an Ultimate fires every 20-25 seconds from a 0-start, or every ~10 seconds from a 600-start.

Cooldowns (real-time, not turn-based)

Active skills come with two cooldown values stored on every skill:

  • Animation lock: the minimum time between two attempts to cast the same skill (typically 3 seconds).
  • Skill cooldown: the displayed cooldown in the in-game UI, which decreases as you level up the skill.

For example, a typical active skill at Level 1 has a 14-15 second cooldown; at Level 3 the cooldown drops to 10 seconds. This is the single biggest reward for raising a character's star tier — the same skill becomes 30-50% more castable.

Active skill Lv 1(Initial cooldown after first use) ~14 s
Active skill Lv 2(Star Up reduces the cooldown) ~12 s
Active skill Lv 3(Max-level cooldown) ~10 s

A few characters break the pattern (Tarukus and Blueford have 16-22 second active cooldowns even at max level). Most ults have no cooldown of their own — they fire as soon as the Energy bar fills.

Auto-attack timing

Every character has a 3-hit basic-attack combo. Each hit takes a different amount of time depending on the character's animation. Combo totals range from ~4 seconds (fast) to ~5.5 seconds (slow):

Rudol von Stroheim(Three even 1.33s hits — fast combo) ~4.0 s
Jonathan Joestar(Three slower hits ~1.8s each) ~5.5 s
Pesci(Hits get slower (1.47s / 1.83s / 2.27s)) ~5.6 s

Fast-combo characters get more Energy per second from basics (90 Energy per ~4 seconds ≈ 22.5/s, vs ~16/s for slow combos). This compounds with active skills and passive regen to determine how quickly your Ultimate is ready.

Speed: action priority

The speed stat is benchmarked at 10,000. Turn order is computed by simulating an "action gauge" that ticks up at a rate proportional to each unit's Speed; whoever fills first acts first.

Speed 8 000(Acts 20% slower than baseline) × 0.80
Speed 10 000(Baseline cadence) × 1.00
Speed 12 000(Acts ~20% more often) × 1.20
Speed 15 000(One extra turn per ~3 rounds) × 1.50
Speed 20 000(Effectively double-turning slower units) × 2.00

The practical implication: a high-Speed debuffer that lands DMG-taken stacks before the boss acts is worth dramatically more than a higher-damage unit that goes after the boss skill.

See also