Best utilize? Hmm.

In case you (or anyone) is a beginner w overload,here's the basics. Your character stores up ultimate by using light/heavy attacks, killing things and through various skills/buffs in the game. (Learn how your specific character earns ultimate, it's helpful to know how to charge your meter faster). You can store up to 500 ultimate at a time.

Most ultimates drain this bank entirely when you activate them. Overload does not. Once activated, it remains active and allows you to spend a little ultimate at a time on super-charged light and heavy attacks. As a rule, the heavy attacks are weird and useless to me, I focus on light attacks. If my character's average attack does 15k damage, an overload light hits for 25-30k, so it's significant.

Activating overload also opens a "secret" third ability bar. The default is to copy the regular bar, but you can activate overload, switch skills around, then deactivate it and those skills "stick" for the next time. Your overload bar can be similar to your regular bar, or totally different...up to you.

Overload stays active until you either turn it off, the same way you activated it, or you run dry of ultimate.

Optimization tips:

1. Turn on the ultimate meter on your skill bar. It's in the interface menu somewhere...under combat text or in a section up above. It displays a little number from 0-500 in the ultimate icon. This is essential with overload so you can decide when to use it and see how many shots you have left.

2. Think about your third bar and which skills are most useful. At the least, you want to have surge active for the 20% buffs to damage AND crit, which stack w overload. Another skill might be bound armaments, under the theory that you're using overload in tough fights. And while you're probably slotting Curse on your bar where you slot overload, I find this an essential ability while in overload for pushing dps through the roof.

3. Learn to thread light / heavy attacks when you're not using overload. Slipping light / heavy attacks between ability casts helps you deal free damage, it returns some resources, but it also charges the ultimate meter. If you're an overload build. You want to charge and use overload all the time, not just rarely...so earn that ultimate fast.

4. When in overload, thread abilities. As a beginner it's easy to activate overload and zap, zap, zap it to depletion. Make sure you're casting Curse...crystal frag...execute...etc. You don't want to be in overload with a full bar of magika sitting unused. Get that curse timer running and blowing up while you're pounding them with the lights.

5. Keep TotalImmortal by Offspring queued up on your stereo and blast it whenever you activate overload. Will it buff the damage? I can't see how it couldn't.