All five pickups — what they do, how long they last, and when they're actually worth taking
Power-ups spawn periodically around the arena and are collected by walking over them. There's no inventory and no activation button — picking one up applies it immediately. You can hold several different effects at once, and any active effects are shown on your HUD with a countdown ring so you can see what's running and how long is left.
Bots pick up power-ups the same way you do, by walking near them. They don't actively hunt for them, but they will happily take one you were walking toward.
| Power-up | Duration | Spawn weight | Effect in one line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Speed Zap | 6 s | 22 (most common) | 2.4× movement speed plus an instant dash |
| Mega Pull | 6 s | 20 | Dramatically stronger, longer-reaching attraction |
| Shield | 8 s | 20 | Blocks the next 3 hits outright |
| Shockwave | Instant | 18 | Radial burst: 20 damage and heavy knockback |
| Gold Rush | 7 s | 15 (rarest) | Increased scoring from what you collect |
The most common pickup, and deceptively strong. It raises your maximum speed to 2.4× normal — and, importantly, scales your acceleration by the same amount, so you actually reach that higher ceiling instead of slowly creeping toward it. It also applies an immediate 380-unit dash burst in your current direction the moment you grab it, so the effect is felt instantly rather than ramping up.
For scale, normal top speed is 400 units, Speed Zap takes you to roughly 960, and a boost pad launches you at about 1360. Speed Zap is deliberately tuned to be fast but still slower than a pad.
When to take it: almost always. Six seconds of doubled-plus mobility is useful for escaping a losing fight, closing on a distracted opponent, or crossing open ground to reach loose ammunition. It's the most flexible pickup in the game precisely because it doesn't commit you to anything.
Supercharges your magnetic attraction for six seconds — both the strength of the pull and the range it reaches. In practice you go from gathering balls that are nearby to vacuuming up most of what's in your general vicinity.
This is the pickup that most directly feeds the core loop. A full cluster is your damage output, and Mega Pull is the fastest way to assemble one. It's especially strong right after a big fight, when the floor around you is covered in balls that were just fired and went inert.
When to take it: when you're low on cluster and there's ammunition around. It's much less valuable if you're already carrying a full ring — you can only orbit so much, and the extra reach is wasted.
Blocks the next three hits, completely, for up to eight seconds. Blocked hits deal no damage at all — and each block awards you a small score bonus and shows a "BLOCKED!" callout, so you always know it fired. The shield bubble around you visibly shrinks as charges are consumed, giving you a clear read on how much protection you have left.
Three hits is a lot. In Classic, that's frequently the difference between dying to a full cluster and walking away from it.
When to take it: before committing to a fight you expect to be messy — pushing into a contested area, or engaging someone who already has a full cluster. It's largely wasted if you grab it and then disengage, since the eight-second window expires whether you use the charges or not.
The only instant-effect pickup — there's no duration because it fires the moment you collect it. It detonates a radial burst around you, dealing 20 damage to every opponent within 260 units and knocking them (and any loose balls) sharply outward with about 320 units of force.
20 damage is roughly two ball-hits' worth, but the knockback is usually the more valuable half. Displacing several opponents at once breaks up a crowded fight, and on hazard maps that displacement can be lethal on its own.
When to take it: when opponents are close, not when you're alone. Because it's instant and centred on you, walking over a Shockwave while isolated wastes it entirely. Its value scales directly with how many people are standing near you when you touch it — which makes it far and away the best pickup on Lava Pit, where shoving several players toward hazard terrain simultaneously can end multiple lives at once.
The rarest pickup, running for seven seconds. Gold balls are worth more than standard metal ones, and Gold Rush increases what you earn from collecting during its window.
It's the only power-up that doesn't directly affect combat, which makes it the most situational of the five — it converts safe collecting time into score rather than helping you win a fight.
When to take it: when the area around you is safe and there's plenty to collect. Grabbing Gold Rush and then immediately getting into a fight largely wastes it. Since matches are scored, though, a well-timed Gold Rush in a quiet corner of the map can be worth as much as a couple of kills.
If you'd rather play without them, private rooms have a "Pure Skill" toggle that disables power-up spawns entirely for that match. It's only available when hosting a private room — public matchmaking always has power-ups enabled, so that public matches stay predictable for everyone queueing into them.
Next: read the progression guide for how coins, XP and cosmetics work, or the strategy guide for the core mechanics these pickups modify.
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