Average on paper, second-highest damage per second in the game, and free
Volley damage assumes all three bolts connect. Reach is the ground one bolt covers before it dies, and Bolt's is seventh-longest of the ten fighters.
Bolt is what the middle of this roster looks like: his 230 move speed lands within two points of the ten-fighter average of 231.5, and his 100 HP sits just under the 107.5 average. Nothing on his card gives an opponent a plan — not slow enough to corner, not fragile enough to delete, not short-ranged enough to kite.
What the flat stat line hides is his output. Three bolts at 14 damage is 42 per trigger pull, and he pulls every 0.45 seconds — around 93 damage per second if the whole burst connects. Only Brasa beats that, and she does it from much closer in. He is not a compromise pick; he is a high-damage fighter in an unremarkable jersey.
The three bolts leave at slightly different angles, so his damage depends on distance in a way the numbers above never show. Think in fighter-widths — the width of one character on screen. Inside roughly three widths all three connect for the full 42. Past five and a half the fan has opened wider than a body and only two arrive. At the edge of his range you land one bolt for 14. His shots travel a long way; his damage does not.
The Nova ignores your aim: the same ring comes out whichever way you face, so nobody flanks it and nobody sidesteps it. The catch is arithmetic. Because the fourteen bolts spread evenly, one opponent inside about two fighter-widths catches two of them for 36; anyone further away catches exactly one, for 18. Against a single enemy it pays less than an ordinary burst; against five it is 90 damage in every direction at once.
The bar fills only from damage you land — being hit does nothing — and every knockout adds another 15%. Roughly 222 points of damage fills it, five or six clean bursts, so a Bolt who spends the match backing away never sees his Super.
Horde is his best mode by a distance: twenty knockouts, enemies converging from every side, and the Nova is the one thing in his kit that rewards being surrounded. In Royale and Battle the storm squeezes everyone into a shrinking circle, so hold the Super for that final ring. King of the Hill suits him better than his tier suggests: the ring reaches about three fighter-widths from its centre, so one Nova from the middle blankets the whole point.
Tournament is his weakest: in a 1v1 the Nova is worth 18 to 36 damage for a full bar, the worst Super payoff in the game against a lone target. Win duels with fire rate instead. In Deathmatch and 3v3, where deaths are cheap, his 0.45s cadence is built for third-partying.
Nothing to unlock — he is yours from the first match. His wardrobe is the deepest in the game: the classic look, three coin skins at 60, 100 and 150, Prismatic for 320 gems or free at the end of the Reward Road, and Champion, which is not for sale at any price and lands at player level 20.
More fighters: 🌀 Pulso · 🛡️ Tanko · full roster · tier list