Graves vs Bebop

Do

• Plan for Cursed Relic Cursed Relic 6,400 souls Tier 4TechPress +55s Cooldown +3.25s Duration +0.1s Cast Delay -25% Damage Penalty — know which tier it sits in so you are not improvising at the shop.
• Know what Grapple Arm looks like. It is the cooldown this lane revolves around.

Avoid

• Walking to lane on the same path every wave against a hero with Bebop's engage range.

Do

• A Bebop with hook on cooldown is close to a non-threat; his lane pressure is entirely cooldown-gated
• He has no escape whatsoever — a gank on his side of the lane usually kills him
• Jar of Dead Jar of Dead Passively banks a charge whenever something dies near Graves. Crowd Control none at base; the tier-2 upgrade adds roughly a 30% movement slow for about… Damage roughly 16 spirit per Deadhead hit at base spirit power (deadlock.one, patch… Defensive tier-1 upgrade returns a small heal (about 5 health) when a death is… 1 heals Graves a small amount for each death collected 2 Deadhead hits apply roughly a 30% slow for about 1 second 5 +2 additional Deadheads and +4 seconds of lifetime charges off every creep death, so a lane Graves is winning snowballs the ability's uptime

Avoid

• The beam weapon's huge 66-round clip and steady stream of fast shots make last-hitting and denying orbs easier
• Grapple Arm converts any moment of bad positioning near the lane's side walls into a kill

Do

• Their first real spike is Grapple Arm T2 (roughly 3-5k souls) — respect it from that point, not before.
• Your spike is ult unlock: Borrowed Decree Borrowed Decree 20m Range16s Duration140s Cooldown Plants a gravestone that spawns Ghouls over time. Crowd Control area slow on Ghoul detonation Damage roughly 115 spirit on Ghoul detonation and about 40 melee per upgrade tier; Defensive a gravestone placed on your own walker or guardian turns a defensive hold… 1 +25% Ghoul move speed and about -15s cooldown 2 +10s duration 5 Ghouls deal roughly +5% of the target's current health as damage when they die, and… converts her into permanent lane and objective pressure even while she is elsewhere on the map

Avoid

• Taking an even fight against Bebop on their spike timing when you could take the same fight ten minutes later on yours.

Do

• Watch for Hyper Beam Hyper Beam 120s Cooldown Bebop channels an enormous beam of energy that deals heavy spirit damage over time and slows anything it touches. Crowd Control Applies a movement slow to everything hit. Damage Tier 2 adds +108 DPS. Channel lasts about 11s with a 1s cast delay.… Mobility Bebop is slowed and locked into the channel; 1 roughly -20s cooldown from the 120s base 2 +108 damage per second 5 heals for 65% of hero damage dealt and 20% of non-hero damage . Break line of sight — the beam is a straight line and stepping behind any pillar or corner ends your exposure instantly
• Put a body between you and him — Grapple Arm stops on the first character it hits, so walking behind your own troopers or your frontline makes you literally unhookable

Avoid

• Spending your own escape before Grapple Arm is on cooldown.

• Hyper Beam Ultimate

  Sticking power rather than damage: applies a movement slow to everything hit.

  • Break line of sight — the beam is a straight line and stepping behind any pillar or corner ends your exposure instantly
  • Stun, Silence or knock him during the 1s cast delay and the entire 120s ultimate is gone
  • Never contest an objective in a straight open lane against a Bebop with ultimate up; force the fight around geometry
• Grapple Arm Ability 3

  Position is the thing this takes from you: hard displacement — the target is pulled through the air with no control for the duration of the reel-in.

  • It is blocked by the first body it touches — walk behind troopers or a frontline teammate and the hook physically cannot reach you
  • Never stand in a straight open line to a Bebop who has hook up; break the line with pillars, crates Crates Breakable Streets, rooftops and tunnels — about 500 of them Ordinary breakables. Each has a 60% chance to drop souls; a Tough Crate always drops, for double. Souls 23 souls a crate, 60% of the time +2 a minute and building corners
  • The projectile has travel time; strafing perpendicular to him, especially while sliding or dashing, beats it at long range
• Exploding Uppercut Exploding Uppercut 22s Cooldown Bebop swings upward, knocking back everyone close to him. Crowd Control Knockback/knockup on the initial hit, plus a fire-rate reduction applied by… Damage Not sourced as a single figure on current pages; Mobility none for Bebop himself; 1 roughly -11s cooldown (base is about 22s) 2 +9 uppercut hit buff and +30% weapon damage 5 on hero hit, resets Grapple Arm's cooldown and restores about +18% of his missing health Ability 1

  It puts you somewhere you did not choose to be — knockback/Knockup on the initial hit, plus a fire-rate reduction applied by the landing detonation.

  • Do not stand in melee range of a Bebop who has hook available — the uppercut is the back half of the combo, so denying the hook denies this too
  • If you are hooked, spend a dash the instant you land rather than the instant you are grabbed; the uppercut lands during the reel-in
  • Unstoppable Unstoppable 6,400 souls Tier 4ArmorInstantCast +60s Cooldown +5.5s Duration +125 Bonus Health +25% Debuff Resist Builds from Debuff Reducer or CC-immunity effects prevent the knockback and the whole combo falls apart
• Sticky Bomb Sticky Bomb 6m Range3.5s Duration18s Cooldown Bebop sticks a bomb to a target or surface; Damage Tier 2 alone adds +85 damage. Defensive Tier 3 gives +5 m/s move speed and +25% debuff resistance for 6s on cast… 1 roughly -8s cooldown from the ~18s base 2 +85 damage 5 on cast, +5 m/s move speed and +25% debuff resistance for 6s Ability 2

  His scaling damage source and the bulk of his burst. The stacking mechanic means an unpunished Bebop's bomb gets meaningfully stronger across a match, so denying stacks in lane matters for the whole game.

  • Break away from your allies the moment a bomb lands on you — the explosion is an area effect and clustering turns one bomb into four hits of stacks for him
  • Deny stacks in lane by refusing to eat free bomb hits; his late-game burst is literally a function of how many times he hit you early
  • Debuff-cleanse items remove the bomb before detonation, which is the cleanest hard answer

1. 1 Grapple Arm

   Grapple Arm above everything — it is the hero. Walk into hook range behind a trooper or with a dash held, force the cast, then play the next 11-23 seconds aggressively because he has no pick and no escape

2. 2 Exploding Uppercut

   Exploding Uppercut second, because its T3 resets the hook; if he burns the uppercut on a trooper wave or a non-lethal target, the chain-pick is off the table

3. 3 Sticky Bomb

   Sticky Bomb is the lowest priority to bait — it is short cooldown and cheap for him to throw; just do not cluster when it lands

• Almost no mobility and no escape; he dies to any collapse he does not see coming Strong evidence
• Entirely cooldown-dependent — with hook down he contributes little Strong evidence
• Hook is blocked by the first body it touches, including troopers Strong evidence
• Bebop threatens you two ways at once — a combo that kills and a disable that makes the combo land — and the three big defensive actives are deliberately orthogonal, so you have to decide which half you are answering. Metal Skin Metal Skin 3,200 souls Tier 3ArmorInstantCast +24s Cooldown +5s Duration +12% Bullet Resist -20% Dash Distance +20% Gravity Scale blocks Bullet Damage and no statuses; Unstoppable blocks statuses and no damage; Ethereal Shift Ethereal Shift 6,400 souls Tier 4TechInstantCast +37s Cooldown +4s Duration +5s Buff Duration +30% Spirit Resist +20 Spirit Power blocks everything but takes you out of the fight and cancels your own channels. Buying two is the honest answer if you have the souls; buying the wrong one is the same as buying nothing. Strong evidence
• Read this matchup as one where the early deficit sticks. Bebop is a top-tier laner, and the 09-16-2026 patch removed the fixed bonus souls for being modestly behind in net worth on both hero kill bounties and Rift bounties, with the notes explicitly naming early-to-mid game as the most affected window. What is left is a redistribution inside your own team, not a handout. The practical consequence is that a lane you lose 0-6 minutes no longer self-corrects — you have to not lose it, or take the game somewhere else quickly. Documented
• Neither of you can disengage well, so fights between you tend to go to completion. That makes the decision to start one much more important than anything you do inside it — commit only when you already have the advantage, because backing out is not available to either side. Strategic

• Grapple Arm reaches roughly 60m once upgraded — if you can see a Bebop down a straight lane, you are already inside his kill range Documented
• The hook-into-Sticky-Bomb-into-Exploding-Uppercut sequence is a full combo that can kill squishies outright once his bomb has stacks Documented
• With Exploding Uppercut T3 he resets his own hook on a hero hit, so surviving the first pick does not mean the chain is over Documented
• Hyper Beam deletes Guardians and Walkers in seconds — a free channel on an objective costs you the lane, not just the fight Documented
• Exploding Uppercut can throw you off a bridge or out of your team's formation even when he is not going for damage Documented
• You are exactly the target Bebop is looking for — low durability, no exit. Expect them to ignore your frontline entirely and open on you, and to do it at the moment your team's attention is elsewhere. Your positioning has to assume they are already past your tank. Strong evidence
• Bebop can take you from healthy to dead inside one combo, so health-bar management is not a useful frame in this matchup — being visible at all inside their range is the risk. Assume any moment you are in their line of sight at full health is a moment they can kill you. Strong evidence

• Put a body between you and him — Grapple Arm stops on the first character it hits, so walking behind your own troopers or your frontline makes you literally unhookable Strong evidence
• Route through cover: hug pillars, crates Crates Breakable Streets, rooftops and tunnels — about 500 of them Ordinary breakables. Each has a 60% chance to drop souls; a Tough Crate always drops, for double. Souls 23 souls a crate, 60% of the time +2 a minute and building corners so no straight line ever exists from him to you, especially in the 30-60m band Strong evidence
• Carry a cleanse or debuff-removal item to strip Sticky Bomb before it detonates, and spread out the instant you see one land on a teammate Strong evidence
• Hold a Stun for the 1s Hyper Beam cast delay; cancelling the channel removes a 120s cooldown from the fight Strong evidence
• Play high-stamina, high-mobility heroes into him where possible and strafe perpendicular at range — the hook is a travelling projectile Strong evidence
• Deny Sticky Bomb stacks in lane; his late-game burst is a direct function of how many free bomb hits you gave him early Strong evidence
• You do not have the CC to reliably break Hyper Beam out of your own kit, so buy the cheapest thing that does: Silence Wave Silence Wave 3,200 souls Tier 3TechInstantCast +42s Cooldown +3s Duration +0.1s Cast Delay +90 Bonus Health is the only area Silence in the shop and the standard answer to channelled ultimates. Area matters because you do not have to win the aim duel — you have to cover the spot they cast from. Note the alternative, Counterspell Counterspell 3,200 souls Tier 3ArmorPassive +23s Cooldown +20 Spirit Power +6s Buff Duration +0.8s Spell Parry Duration +50 Bonus Health +5 Spirit Power , parries a single ability outright but requires a read; Silence Wave forgives a bad read, which is why it is the buy when interrupting is not your specialty. Strong evidence
• Bebop starts the fight and you have no exit, so the defensive active you buy has to work when you did not see it coming. Unstoppable is the stronger effect — immunity to and a dispel of Stun, Silence, Sleep, Root and Disarm for 5.5 seconds — but it must be pre-cast, and it cannot be activated once you are already stunned, which is precisely the situation this hero creates. Indomitable Indomitable 6,400 souls Tier 4ArmorPassive +55s Cooldown +10s Duration +10% Bullet Resist +10% Spirit Resist +20s Cooldown On Apply +2 Out of Combat Regen Builds from Reactive Barrier auto-cleanses the next Hard CC with no input from you; against an initiator that reliability beats the bigger number. Strong evidence

• Any time Grapple Arm is on cooldown (up to 23s base, ~11.5s upgraded) he has no gap-close, no escape and no pick — this is the window to walk at him Documented
• During the 1s cast delay and the full ~11s channel of Hyper Beam he is slowed and locked in place; a dive here is usually free Documented
• Immediately after a missed hook — the projectile animation and cooldown leave him standing still with only a beam weapon Documented
• While he is channelling Hyper Beam into an objective, his team is effectively playing a man down on the map Documented
• Anywhere in open ground with no walls or pillars: without geometry to hook you behind, his whole combo loses its follow-up Documented
• Bebop's pull is the whole matchup. Until it is on cooldown you are playing around it; once it misses you have a window that is worth committing into. Make it the first thing you bait — show a sliver of yourself from behind cover rather than walking a clean line they can lead. Strategic

• You have real objective damage, which makes the Guardian your win condition in this lane rather than Bebop's health bar. Guardian resistance scales from +50% down to −50% across roughly the first twelve minutes since 05-22-2026 — it gets softer, not harder, so the pressure you can apply grows every minute from about 6:00. Guardians also have no ability-damage reduction, so spirit works on them at full value. Older guides claiming Guardians toughen over time are wrong. Documented
• Bebop will shove the wave into your Guardian to push you off souls, and you are not fast enough to walk around it. The thing to protect is the floating orb — the ground orb drops and cannot be denied, so half your income is safe no matter what they do, and the contest is only ever over the other 50. Position on your Guardian's side of the wave so you are already in range of the floating orbs when they pop, and give up the forward orbs rather than crossing for them. Strategic
• Bebop is one of the strongest laners in the game and the standard build order will lose to them. Tier I is 800 and Tier II is 1,600, so your first meaningful decision comes fast: against this hero the 1,600 that answers their specific threat (Healbane Healbane 1,600 souls Tier 2ArmorPassive +8s Duration +7 Spirit Power -35% Incoming Healing if they out-sustain you, Debuff Reducer Debuff Reducer 1,600 souls Tier 2ArmorPassive +25% Debuff Resist +90 Bonus Health if they out-lock you, Battle Vest Battle Vest 1,600 souls Tier 2ArmorPassive +18% Bullet Resist +3 Out of Combat Regen +65% Life Threshold +22% Weapon Damage +7% Fire Rate at +18% if they out-gun you) is worth more than the damage item that wins you a lane you are not going to win anyway. Strategic

• Your objective damage is the lever in this matchup and the Walker timing is where it pays. Walkers sit around 65% damage resistance early and decay toward −65% by minute 18, so the same rotation that accomplishes nothing at 12:00 kills one outright at 17:00. Each Walker your team destroys also unlocks an extra item slot for the whole team, so the take is a build spike for five other people, not just souls. Remember a Walker is invulnerable unless someone is within 22m. Strong evidence
• If you are behind and planning to fight Bebop on the Rift point because of the comeback bubble, recheck the number. As of 09-16-2026 the behind-team resist bonus inside the 35m radius is no longer a flat 35% — it is 10% + 1% per minute, capping at 40% only at 30:00, which is roughly 20% at the first Rift. Twenty percent does not turn a losing fight against burst into a winning one. The reduced capture time (floor 6 seconds) is the part of the comeback package that is still worth playing for. Documented

• Hyper Beam is a channel, which means the fight is decided by whether you can break it. Hold one interrupt — a Stun, a Silence, or a displacement — specifically for that cast rather than spending it on the opening trade. If you have no interrupt, the answer is line of sight: leave the area entirely rather than trying to out-heal it. Strong evidence
• Against Bebop's knockups, Debuff Reducer is a live answer where it used to be a dead one: Knockup durations were brought under debuff reduction on 05-22-2026, so the +25% from a 1,600 Tier II item genuinely shortens the airborne time. That matters more for you than for most, because you have no exit and the airborne window is when their follow-up lands. Worth pairing with the fact that Knockdown Knockdown 3,200 souls Tier 3TechPress +35s Cooldown +0.1s Cast Delay +2s Stun Delay +0.5s Stun Duration +75 Bonus Health +5% Ability Range +5% Radius -style effects going the other way still cannot be shortened at all. Documented
• Bebop brings enough lockdown that Stun sequencing matters. Community reporting describes Stun diminishing returns of roughly 10% then 30% inside an 8-second window, applying to stuns only and not to silences, slows, disarms or hexes — so their follow-up chain may be shorter than the first one felt. Treat this as unconfirmed, but it is worth knowing before you burn a cleanse on the opening Stun. Uncertain

• Bebop decides where you stand, not you. The practical rule is to never hold a position whose failure case is being moved — stand so that being yanked or knocked puts you somewhere survivable rather than inside their whole team. Cover at your back is worth more than cover in front. Strong evidence
• When you go for their Walker against a team with Bebop peeling, the 22m rule is your positioning constraint: a Walker is invulnerable while no enemy is within 22m, so somebody has to be inside that ring for any of your damage to count. Being that body is a commitment, not a poke. Backdoor protection also gives the Walker 65% damage reduction and 65 HP/s regeneration until your trooper wave arrives, so going without the wave is not a faster take, it is no take at all. Strong evidence

• Against Bebop's burst, a reactive mitigation active beats flat health. Flat health raises the number they have to hit; a barrier or damage-reduction active on a short cooldown breaks the combo itself, which is what actually saves you. Strong evidence
• Against Bebop's crowd control, understand what Debuff Resist actually buys you: it shortens duration, never magnitude. It is excellent against long disables and close to worthless against a short hard slow. Two things it explicitly does not shorten at all are the parry Stun and the Knockdown item's Stun. Documented
• Cursed Relic (spirit T4) — Bebop is where this lineup’s channelled ultimates comes from. Buy to shut down one enemy carry or to cancel a game-deciding ultimate outright. Documented
• Ethereal Shift (spirit T4) — Buy to survive a telegraphed assassination combo or ultimate — you cannot be hurt for four seconds. That matters here because of the channelled ultimates from Bebop. Documented
• Focus Lens Focus Lens 6,400 souls Tier 4TechPress +40s Cooldown +4.5s Duration +0.1s Cast Delay +35% Damage On Expire +10% Fire Rate -9% Spirit Resist -30 Spirit Power +12s Resist Reduction Duration Builds from Spirit Sap (spirit T4) — This lineup gets its channelled ultimates from Bebop. Buy to take one enemy caster out of the fight — it silences them for four and a half seconds. Documented

• The losing pattern against Bebop is deciding to leave, walking to the zipline and finding you cannot attach. Any damage from an enemy hero or objective blocks zipline attachment for 3 seconds, and Bebop has the chip range to keep that 3-second timer rolling indefinitely. Break line of sight first, wait out the lockout, then attach — do not walk to the rope while still taking fire. Documented
• The wrong instinct in the first six minutes is treating your health bar as a resource you can spend down to trade. Against Bebop it is not: they do not need you low, they need you in range once. With no self-sustain you also have no way to convert a survived trade into anything — you just stand there at 40% until the combo comes back. Your first 1,600 should be the item that breaks the combo, not the one that wins the poke war. Strategic