Patch 09-16-2026 Data researched 2026-09-21 What changed
HO Holliday — assassin frame

Holliday

SkirmisherInitiatorCarry mid range hybrid damage mid-game High difficulty

Measured 47.9% win rate, 1.9% pick rate on patch 09-16-2026 across 43,815 matches.

Strengths

  • Exceptional personal and team mobility via Bounce Pad and Powder Keg self-launch
  • Crackshot ignores range falloff, giving her effectively unlimited-range burst on headshots
  • Spirit Lasso is one of the cleanest single-target kidnaps in the game, and Bounce Pad extends it
  • Layered hard CC — knockup, landing stun and lasso stun — gives her control most gun heroes lack

Weaknesses

  • Zero sustain and low durability — she cannot absorb a committed dive
  • Damage is entirely aim-gated; a Holliday who is not hitting heads contributes very little
  • Every one of her tools is telegraphed — a visible barrel, a visible pad, a targeted lasso
  • Poor sustained DPS: a 10-round magazine at about 2.1 rounds per second loses extended brawls to SMG heroes

Weapon

high-caliber revolver-style pistol. Slow, heavy single shots — roughly 2.1 rounds per second for about 19.7 damage each from a 10-round magazine, with very fast bullet travel (around 1156 m/s) that makes long-range shots feel near-instant. Headshots are the core of her damage because Crackshot only triggers on them.

Abilities

Powder Keg

Ability 1 · thrown delayed explosive with knockup

Throws a barrel that detonates after a short delay for spirit damage, applies a burn, and launches anyone caught in the blast into the air. It can be detonated early by shooting it or hitting it with melee, and alt-cast drops it directly in front of her.

What it is for: Her wave-clear, her setup tool and her personal movement tech in one — the knockup both sets up her headshots and launches her across the map when she stands in her own blast.

Damage
about 80 spirit at base plus burn damage over time; tier 3 adds +40 impact and roughly +13.3 burn DPS (deadlock.one, metabot.gg)
Crowd control
knockup on detonation — hard CC that removes the target's ability to strafe
Mobility
self-launch: detonating it under her own feet is her primary traversal tool
Defensive
the knockup interrupts a diver's approach and buys the beat she needs to reposition

How to play against it

  • Shoot the barrel to detonate it early on your own terms, before you are in the blast radius
  • The delay is generous — simply walk out of the marked area rather than trading through it
  • If you get knocked up, do not panic-dash on landing; she is waiting for the predictable landing spot for her Crackshot headshot
  • Fight her in open ground where you can back out of barrel range; in tight interiors the stacked burn is far harder to escape

Interactions

  • Overlapping barrels stack their burn, so a double-keg on a chokepoint is a real damage zone
  • Self-launch combos with Bounce Pad for extreme vertical repositioning
  • The knockup is what makes Crackshot reliable — keg into headshot is her core combo
  • Barrels are shootable objects, so the enemy can detonate them early at a time of their choosing
Upgrade tiers
  • Tier 3: +40 impact damage, about +13.3 burn damage per second, roughly -5s charge time and improved spirit scaling

Bounce Pad

Ability 2 · placed launch pad with landing stomp

Drops a pad that launches any hero who touches it high into the air. Whoever was launched explodes on landing, damaging nearby enemies — once per person per pad.

What it is for: Team-wide vertical mobility plus a landing AoE — it is her rotation tool, her escape, and her team's way of reaching angles that should not be reachable.

Damage
about 60 stomp damage on landing (deadlock.one)
Crowd control
tier 3 adds about +0.7s stun to the landing stomp
Mobility
very large vertical launch for Holliday and all allies who step on it
Defensive
the fastest way out of a collapsing fight, and it works for her whole team

How to play against it

  • The pad is a visible placed object with a long lifetime — route around it rather than through it
  • Knockdown hits her out of the launch arc; she is fully committed and cannot change direction mid-flight
  • The stomp only triggers once per person per pad, so absorbing it with a durable body neutralizes the AoE for the rest of the fight
  • You can stand on her pad too — use it to follow her or to escape the angle she just took

Interactions

  • Extends Spirit Lasso duration — using a Bounce Pad while the lasso is active adds about +1.25s as of 09-16-2026
  • It launches ANY hero, including enemies, so a badly-placed pad can be used against her
  • Combines with Powder Keg self-launch for compound movement that covers enormous distance
  • Tier 2 gives her and allies about +4 m/s move speed for 4s on landing, making it a team rotation tool
Upgrade tiers
  • Tier 1: about -10s cooldown
  • Tier 2: she and allies gain roughly +4 m/s movement speed for 4 seconds on landing
  • Tier 3: about +0.7s stun on the landing stomp

Crackshot

Ability 3 · headshot-triggered damage and slow passive

Her headshots deal bonus damage and apply a fading movement speed penalty. The bonus runs on its own cooldown, which refreshes faster on NPC hits.

What it is for: The reason to play her at all — it converts her low fire rate into real per-shot damage and gives her a slow that chains into her barrel and lasso setups.

Damage
about 55 bonus damage at base; tier 2 adds roughly +49.5 (deadlock.one, metabot.gg)
Crowd control
a fading movement speed penalty; tier 1 deepens it by about 20%
Defensive
the slow is a kiting tool against a chasing bruiser

How to play against it

  • Strafe unpredictably and keep your head behind cover — a Crackshot that misses the head is just a 19.7 damage pistol shot
  • It is on a cooldown, so after eating one headshot the next several seconds are her weakest window — push in then
  • Fight her in close quarters where she cannot line up a head; her fire rate of about 2.1 per second punishes her badly in a brawl
  • Bullet Armor reduces it; note the tier-2 bullet-resist shred partially offsets that, so stack more than a single resist item

Interactions

  • Ignores damage falloff, which is why she can fight at ranges her base pistol should not reach
  • Does not apply to objectives, so it contributes nothing to walker or guardian damage
  • NPC headshots refresh the cooldown at half cost (and tier 3 reduces it further), so farming the wave keeps it available for the hero fight
  • Tier 2's -6% Bullet Resist for 5s (added 09-16-2026) makes her headshots a small team-wide damage amp
Upgrade tiers
  • Tier 1: about -20% additional fading move speed penalty
  • Tier 2: about +49.5 damage and -6% Bullet Resist on the target for 5 seconds
  • Tier 3: about -6s cooldown on hero headshots and -3s on NPC headshots

Spirit Lasso

Ultimate · targeted pull with stun

Throws a lasso that deals spirit damage, pulls the target toward her, and stuns them. Using a Bounce Pad while it is active extends the duration.

What it is for: A single-target kidnap — it rips one hero out of position and into her team, and she can drag them somewhere worse using a Bounce Pad.

Damage
about 80 spirit at base (deadlock.one)
Crowd control
pull (displacement) plus stun (hard CC)
Mobility
she can relocate while lassoing, dragging the victim with her
Defensive
pulling an enemy off a teammate is a legitimate peel, though it puts them next to her instead

How to play against it

  • Unstoppable pre-cast makes you immune to the stun and the pull outright — hold it for her ult if she is on the enemy team
  • It is a single-target targeted throw — keep a wall or corner between you and her sightline when her ult is up
  • Ethereal Shift makes you untargetable through the pull window
  • Stay near your team: the ult's value is isolation, so a pull into three allies is a wasted ultimate

Interactions

  • Bounce Pad extends the lasso duration (improved to about +1.25s in the 09-16-2026 patch), which is the signature combo: lasso, bounce, drag them across the map
  • A lassoed target is stunned, so it interrupts channels including Bullet Dance and beam abilities
  • Pairs with Powder Keg — land the pull into a pre-placed barrel for a knockup follow-up
  • Single target only, so it is a pick tool rather than a teamfight opener
Upgrade tiers
  • Bounce Pad interaction extends lasso duration; tier upgrades focus on duration and damage — full 09-16-2026 tier values not sourced

Laning strengths

  • Powder Keg clears the wave quickly and pokes the enemy laner in the same cast
  • Crackshot ignores falloff, so she can harass from ranges where her opponent cannot answer
  • Bounce Pad gives her a lane escape most laners simply cannot follow
  • Barrel self-launch lets her contest soul orbs from surprising angles

Laning weaknesses

  • 10-round magazine at roughly 2.1 shots per second means whiffed shots are very expensive
  • No self-heal or sustain of any kind — chip damage accumulates on her with nothing to offset it
  • Her damage is heavily gated behind landing headshots, so she loses lane to anyone whose damage is not aim-gated
  • Relatively low durability and, before Bounce Pad tier 1, a long cooldown on her escape

Power spikes

  • ult unlock: Spirit Lasso gives her a guaranteed pick and the ability to remove one enemy from a fight entirely
  • Bounce Pad tier 3: The roughly +0.7s landing stun turns her mobility tool into a genuine engage
  • Crackshot tier 2: About +49.5 damage plus a bullet-resist shred makes each headshot a real burst window
  • mid 20-35min: Keg-launch plus Bounce Pad plus lasso is the window where her kidnap plays dictate objective fights

Playing against Holliday

  • Hold Unstoppable for Spirit Lasso — it is a targeted stun-and-pull and Unstoppable simply negates it
  • Shoot Powder Keg barrels to detonate them early, before you are inside the blast, and deny the knockup that sets up Crackshot
  • Buy Knockdown for her Bounce Pad launch arcs and for her keg self-launches — she is fully committed in the air with no direction control
  • Brawl her inside 10m: her roughly 2.1 shots per second and 10-round magazine lose badly to any SMG hero in close quarters
  • Break her sightline immediately after she lands a Crackshot headshot — the bonus is on cooldown and she is a weak pistol hero for those seconds
  • Stay grouped so that a lasso pull delivers you into your allies rather than into hers

Bait these first

  • Bounce Pad first — it is her escape, her rotation and (at tier 3) her engage. Force her to place it defensively, then commit while it is on cooldown
  • Powder Keg second: make her spend it on the wave or on a durable frontliner, because without the knockup her Crackshot combo is just a slow pistol shot
  • Spirit Lasso is best baited by a target holding Unstoppable or Ethereal Shift — the ult goes on full cooldown for zero value
  • Do not bait Crackshot deliberately; it refreshes off NPC headshots, so it is cheap for her. Deny it with cover and movement instead

What Holliday does to you

  • Powder Keg knockup into a Crackshot headshot is her kill combo — while airborne you cannot strafe and the headshot is effectively guaranteed
  • Spirit Lasso pulls you out of your team and stuns you, and with a Bounce Pad she drags you even further before the stun ends
  • Crackshot ignores damage falloff, so distance does not actually protect you from her burst the way it does against other gun heroes
  • Bounce Pad tier 3 delivers her whole team onto your backline from above with a landing stun on arrival
  • Stacked overlapping barrels in a tight interior create a burn zone that punishes holding a chokepoint at all

Punish windows

  • The few seconds after any Crackshot headshot lands, while the bonus is on its own cooldown
  • Her reload — 2.75 seconds with only 10 rounds is a long, frequent dead window
  • Mid-air on Bounce Pad or a keg self-launch: she has no directional control and Knockdown ends the flight
  • Immediately after Spirit Lasso resolves — the pulled target is now standing next to a low-durability hero with her ult spent
  • Any close-quarters brawl she is forced into, where her fire rate and magazine size are her worst stats

Hardest matchups for Holliday

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

Victor 39.8% -8.1 pts
Kelvin 42.9% -5.0 pts
Dynamo 44.0% -3.9 pts
Celeste 44.7% -3.2 pts
Lash 44.8% -3.1 pts
Mo & Krill 45.4% -2.5 pts
McGinnis 45.5% -2.4 pts
Abrams 46.0% -1.9 pts

Best matchups for Holliday

Same measure, other direction.

Mirage 52.7% +4.8 pts
Paradox 50.7% +2.8 pts
Grey Talon 50.4% +2.5 pts
Shiv 50.3% +2.4 pts
Bebop 49.7% +1.8 pts
Billy 48.6% +0.7 pts
Rem 48.6% +0.7 pts
Calico 47.0% -0.9 pts

Every Holliday matchup

Analyse a full enemy team

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

Open the tool as Holliday
Sources and confidence for this record

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

Difficulty rating: deadlocklabs.gg hero page lists in-game complexity as 3 of 3 stars (★★★)