DenyPick
Patch 09-16-2026 Data researched 2026-09-21 What changed
BI Billy — frontline frame

Billy

BruiserControllerInitiator close range hybrid damage mid-game High difficulty

Measured 49.2% win rate, 2.8% pick rate on patch 09-16-2026 across 65,910 matches.

Strengths

  • Best-in-class anti-mobility — Chain Gang disables movement abilities outright and Bashdown pulls airborne heroes to the floor
  • Very high sustained close-range damage thanks to the Blasted melee-reload loop
  • Excellent in confined spaces: jungle corridors, lane chokes and objective pits all favour him
  • Multiple layers of knockup and displacement to break enemy formations
  • Chain Gang T1's +40% resists let him survive standing in the middle of the enemy team

Weaknesses

  • No ranged capability at all — he is completely neutralised at distance
  • Highly commitment-dependent; a missed Rising Ram or a Chain Gang broken by line of sight leaves him stranded in melee range
  • Long base cooldowns (35s Bashdown, 32s Rising Ram, 175s Chain Gang) punish misplays severely
  • No escape tool whatsoever
  • Chain Gang's 12m base cast range means he has to already be in danger to use it

Weapon

close-range automatic firearm paired with a bat. A fast close-range gun at 6.30 per bullet and 11.76 shots per second (~74 DPS) with a 30-round clip and a long 2.90s reload. The reload is largely irrelevant because his Blasted passive restores ammunition on melee hits, so his real damage pattern is a melee-shoot-melee loop rather than a normal magazine cycle.

Abilities

Bashdown

Ability 1 · ground slam with anti-air pull and a knockup shockwave

Billy drives his bat into the ground. The slam yanks airborne enemies down to the floor and deals melee damage, and the resulting shockwave deals spirit damage and throws nearby enemies into the air.

What it is for: Simultaneously his anti-air tool and his crowd control. Against heroes who live in the air — Vindicta, Grey Talon, Wraith mid-dash, Calico mid-leap — the downward pull is a hard counter, and the shockwave knockup interrupts everything on the ground.

Damage
35 spirit damage scaling with Spirit Power (deadlock.one); Tier 3 adds 50% heavy melee damage.
Crowd control
Pulls airborne enemies downward plus a knockup shockwave on the ground — two distinct control effects in one cast.
Defensive
The knockup interrupts an incoming dive or a channelled ability.

How to play against it

  • It has a visible slam wind-up and a fixed radius — step out of the circle rather than trying to jump over it, since jumping is exactly what the pull punishes
  • Do not use an air-mobility escape while he has Bashdown available; the pull drags you straight back down and wastes your stamina
  • Bait the charges — at base he only has one on a 35s cooldown, so a spent Bashdown means several seconds of no control from him

Interactions

  • The downward pull is the single most distinctive thing in his kit — it makes air-mobility heroes a favourable matchup for him
  • Blasted T2 refunds a Bashdown charge on use, which is what lets him chain control
  • Tier 2 grants a second charge and +2m radius, turning it from a single interrupt into an area lockdown tool
  • 35s base cooldown with an 8s charge delay makes it expensive to waste
Upgrade tiers
  • T1: -10s cooldown (from a 35s base)
  • T2: +1 charge and +2m radius
  • T3: -3s charge time and now deals 50% heavy melee damage

Rising Ram

Ability 2 · charging gap-close that launches both hero and target airborne

Billy lowers his head and charges into an enemy, carrying both himself and them up into the air. Hitting a target cuts the cooldown in half.

What it is for: His engage and the setup half of his combo. Launching a target airborne removes their ground movement entirely and delivers them into his close-range gun.

Damage
40 spirit damage scaling with Spirit Power (deadlock.one).
Crowd control
Knockup on the target — they are carried airborne alongside Billy.
Mobility
A committed forward charge with a 0.35s cast delay and a short 0.3s duration; it is a gap-close, not an escape.
Defensive
Poor — it moves him toward danger, not away from it.

How to play against it

  • It is a straight-line charge with a 0.35s cast delay — sidestep rather than back up, and the miss costs him the full 32s cooldown instead of 16s
  • Fight him in open ground where a missed charge leaves him fully exposed with no follow-up
  • Hold a stun for the charge wind-up; interrupting it denies both the cooldown refund and the knockup

Interactions

  • The 50% cooldown refund on impact means a hitting Billy can re-engage far sooner than a missing one — punishing the miss is disproportionately valuable
  • Tier 3 grants +10% max health for 16s on hero hit, which is his main durability spike in a fight
  • Launching a target upward denies them their ground dash for the airborne duration
  • A missed Rising Ram is his single biggest liability; urgametips specifically flags missing it as his core vulnerability
Upgrade tiers
  • T1: +25% weapon damage for 5s on impact
  • T2: +0.4s charge duration
  • T3: -13s cooldown (from a 32s base) and +10% max health for 16s on hero hit

Blasted

Ability 3 · melee-driven ammo restore and damage-amplification debuff

Billy's melee hits refill his gun's ammunition and leave the victim 'wrecked' for several seconds. The active portion makes his bullets hit wrecked targets substantially harder.

What it is for: The engine of the hero. It converts him from a gun with a 2.90s reload into a melee-shoot loop that never has to stop, and it is why his sustained damage is genuinely top-tier at close range.

Damage
70 melee bonus health scaling with Spirit Power at base (deadlock.one); Tier 2 adds +7% wrecked bullet amplification.
Crowd control
none (the wrecked status is a damage debuff, not crowd control)
Mobility
Tier 1 grants +2.25 m/s bonus movement speed.
Defensive
Tier 3 grants +50 melee bonus health, which is real effective health inside the melee loop.

How to play against it

  • Do not let him land the melee hit that starts the loop — outside melee range the wrecked status never applies and his gun is just a 74 DPS close-range weapon with a 2.90s reload
  • The 7s wrecked duration is the window to disengage; breaking away resets his amplification
  • Anti-melee itemisation and any effect that keeps you at range defeats the entire mechanic

Interactions

  • Bashdown also applies wrecked, so he does not need to land a raw melee swing to start the loop
  • Tier 2 refunds a Bashdown charge on use, tying his damage engine to his crowd control
  • The wrecked status lasts 7s, which is his effective damage window against a target
  • It sidesteps the 2.90s reload penalty entirely, which is why his DPS number understates him at point-blank range
Upgrade tiers
  • T1: +2.25 m/s bonus movement speed
  • T2: +1 Bashdown charge on use and +7% wrecked bullet amplification
  • T3: +50 melee bonus health and improved spirit scaling

Chain Gang

Ultimate · multi-target tether that disables movement abilities, then yanks

Billy chains every nearby enemy to himself. While chained they cannot use movement abilities at all and are heavily slowed if they try to pull against the chain. After a short delay he hauls everyone back to him for spirit damage. Losing line of sight for long enough breaks the chain.

What it is for: The best anti-mobility ultimate among these eight heroes. It does not just slow escapes, it switches them off — a chained Wraith cannot blink, a chained Calico cannot Leaping Slash, a chained Apollo cannot Disengaging Sigil.

Damage
120 spirit damage scaling with Spirit Power on the yank (deadlock.one).
Crowd control
Movement-ability lockout plus heavy slow for the ~2.8s duration, ending in a forced displacement toward Billy.
Mobility
none for Billy
Defensive
Tier 1 grants +40% spirit and bullet resist for the duration, so he can stand in the middle of the chained group and survive; Tier 3 gives +1.3s Unstoppable per hero pulled.

How to play against it

  • Break line of sight — the chain explicitly snaps if he loses sight of you for a short period, so ducking behind a pillar or a building corner frees you
  • Do not group inside 12m of a Billy with ultimate available; the cast range is short and spreading out means he catches one hero instead of four
  • Save a cleanse or CC-immunity item specifically for this rather than for his Bashdown knockup
  • Note that mobility items and abilities are switched off, not merely slowed — plan the escape around walking behind geometry rather than dashing

Interactions

  • The line-of-sight break clause is the key counterplay — getting a wall between yourself and Billy severs the chain
  • Because it disables movement abilities rather than merely slowing, it hard-counters escape-reliant heroes in a way ordinary CC does not
  • Tier 3's Unstoppable scales with how many heroes he caught, so a multi-hero Chain Gang makes him uncontrollable for several seconds
  • 175s base cooldown, dropping 40s at Tier 2 — a wasted cast is a long liability
  • Cast range is only 12m base (+5m at T3), so he must already be in the middle of the enemy team
Upgrade tiers
  • T1: +40% spirit and bullet resist
  • T2: -40s cooldown (from a 175s base)
  • T3: +5m range and +1.3s Unstoppable per hero pulled

Laning strengths

  • The melee-reload loop from Blasted means he never has to stop shooting to reload in an extended lane trade
  • Rising Ram into the sidewalk of a lane converts into a knockup and a full 74 DPS magazine at point-blank range
  • Bashdown punishes any laner who tries to jump or air-dash away from a trade by dragging them straight back down

Laning weaknesses

  • Zero ranged threat — he has no poke whatsoever and cannot contest a laner who stays at distance
  • Both Bashdown (35s) and Rising Ram (32s) have long base cooldowns, so a baited cast leaves a large dead window
  • A missed Rising Ram in open ground is close to a free kill for the opponent
  • He is not durable enough to simply walk into a two-man lane without cooldowns available

Power spikes

  • Bashdown T2 (+1 charge, +2m radius): Two charges turn his anti-air pull and knockup from a single interrupt into continuous area control
  • Blasted T2: The Bashdown charge refund plus +7% wrecked amplification ties his damage engine to his CC and roughly doubles his effective output in a sustained brawl
  • ult unlock: Chain Gang gives him the ability to switch off enemy escapes entirely, which reframes every fight around whether he gets close
  • Chain Gang T3 (late 35min+): +1.3s Unstoppable per hero pulled makes a multi-target Chain Gang effectively uninterruptible

Playing against Billy

  • Break line of sight against Chain Gang — the chain explicitly snaps when he loses sight of you, so putting a pillar, crate or building corner between you is the intended escape rather than a dash
  • Do not stand within 12m of a Billy holding his ultimate; his cast range is short and a spread formation turns a four-man Chain Gang into a one-man one
  • Fight him at range. He has literally no ranged tool — kiting outside his gun's effective band makes him a non-factor
  • Sidestep Rising Ram rather than backing up; the 0.35s cast delay is readable, and the miss costs him 32s instead of the 16s a hit would
  • Deny the melee hit that starts the Blasted loop — no wrecked status means no bullet amplification and he is stuck with a 2.90s reload
  • Do not use air mobility to escape him while Bashdown is up; walk out along the ground instead, because the pull punishes exactly the jump you want to make
  • Fight in open ground; his entire kit assumes confined space and short distances

Bait these first

  • Bashdown first — at base he has a single charge on a 35s cooldown, and it is both his interrupt and his anti-air. Force it against a trooper wave or a non-committal step and his next several seconds have no control
  • Rising Ram second — it is his only gap-close, and a miss puts it on the full 32s rather than the halved cooldown. Bait it by standing just inside charge range in open ground and dashing laterally
  • Chain Gang is best denied rather than baited: stay spread and keep geometry between yourself and him so the 175s ultimate catches one target and then breaks on line of sight
  • Blasted is not worth baiting; it is a passive loop, so the answer is distance rather than cooldown management

What Billy does to you

  • Chain Gang does not slow your escape, it deletes it — while chained you cannot use Wraith's blink, Calico's Leaping Slash, Apollo's Disengaging Sigil or any other movement ability, and pulling against it heavily slows you before the yank
  • Bashdown yanks airborne heroes straight to the ground, so air-mobility escapes (Vindicta, Grey Talon, a Calico mid-leap, anyone mid-dash) are actively worse than standing still against him
  • Rising Ram launches you into the air alongside him, where you cannot dash and cannot dodge his 74 DPS gun at point-blank range
  • Once Blasted's wrecked status is on you, his bullets are amplified for 7 seconds and he never has to reload because melee hits refill his ammunition
  • At Chain Gang T3 he gains Unstoppable scaling per hero pulled, so counter-CC on him stops working exactly when he has caught the most people

Punish windows

  • Immediately after a missed Rising Ram — he is at close range, has no gap-close for up to 32s, and pays full cooldown instead of the halved on-hit version
  • After Bashdown is spent at base rank: up to 35 seconds with no knockup, no anti-air pull and no way to start the wrecked loop without a raw melee swing
  • The moment Chain Gang breaks on line of sight — he has committed a 175s ultimate, is standing in the middle of your team, and the resist buff runs out
  • Any engagement at range: with zero ranged tools, a Billy being kited is contributing nothing at all
  • While the wrecked debuff has expired and he has not re-applied it — his bullet amplification is off and his gun is back to a plain 74 DPS with a 2.90s reload

Hardest matchups for Billy

Ranked by how far below Billy's own baseline each pairing measures — not by raw win rate.

Graves 40.2% -9.0 pts
Victor 42.4% -6.8 pts
Seven 42.9% -6.3 pts
Paige 43.5% -5.7 pts
Kelvin 45.1% -4.1 pts
Dynamo 45.6% -3.6 pts
Mo & Krill 46.5% -2.7 pts
Lash 47.1% -2.1 pts

Best matchups for Billy

Same measure, other direction.

Mirage 54.9% +5.7 pts
Sinclair 53.8% +4.6 pts
Holliday 51.6% +2.4 pts
Bebop 50.8% +1.6 pts
Grey Talon 49.5% +0.3 pts
Infernus 49.4% +0.2 pts
Viscous 49.3% +0.1 pts
McGinnis 48.7% -0.5 pts

Every Billy matchup

Analyse a full enemy team

Matchup pages cover one enemy. The tool reads all six together.

Open the tool as Billy
Sources and confidence for this record

Record confidence: Strong evidence. Compiled for patch 09-16-2026, researched 2026-09-21.

Difficulty rating: Deadlock Labs hero difficulty guide (deadlocklabs.gg/heroes/difficulty/) lists Billy as Hard; Lockbuilds rates him Medium and urgametips rates his complexity 3 of 5 (medium-high). The two-source spread sits between Medium and Hard.