Sinclair vs Holliday

Do

• Plan for Slowing Hex Slowing Hex 1,600 souls Tier 2TechPress +29s Cooldown +3.5s Duration +0.1s Cast Delay +16% Move Speed -26% Dash Distance — know which tier it sits in so you are not improvising at the shop.
• Know what Bounce Pad looks like. It is the cooldown this lane revolves around.

Avoid

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

Do

• 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
• 16.5 damage per bullet with falloff not starting until 20m gives him a long comfortable poke range

Avoid

• 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

Do

• Their first real spike is ult unlock — respect it from that point, not before.
• Your spike is 1 AP into Rabbit Hex: -10s cooldown (26s to 16s) makes the hard disable available in nearly every skirmish instead of once per fight

Avoid

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

Do

• Watch for Spirit Lasso. Unstoppable Unstoppable 6,400 souls Tier 4ArmorInstantCast +60s Cooldown +5.5s Duration +125 Bonus Health +25% Debuff Resist Builds from Debuff Reducer pre-cast makes you immune to the Stun and the pull outright — hold it for her ult if she is on the enemy team
• Hold Unstoppable for Spirit Lasso — it is a targeted Stun-and-pull and Unstoppable simply negates it

Avoid

• Spending your own escape before Bounce Pad is on cooldown.

• Spirit Lasso Ultimate

  The one cooldown worth tracking on its own timer: pull (displacement) plus Stun (Hard CC).

  • 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 Ethereal Shift 6,400 souls Tier 4TechInstantCast +37s Cooldown +4s Duration +5s Buff Duration +30% Spirit Resist +20 Spirit Power makes you untargetable through the pull window
• Powder Keg Ability 1

  Holliday gets on top of you and then keeps you there — Knockup on detonation, Hard CC that removes the target's ability to strafe.

  • 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
• Bounce Pad Ability 2

  Nothing to respect until the upgrade lands, and then tier 3 adds about +0.7s Stun to the landing stomp.

  • The pad is a visible placed object with a long lifetime — route around it rather than through it
  • 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 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
• Crackshot Ability 3

  This will not kill you on its own — it makes sure you cannot leave while the rest of Holliday's kit does. A fading movement speed penalty.

  • 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

1. 1 Bounce Pad

   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

2. 2 Powder Keg

   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

3. 3 Spirit Lasso

   Spirit Lasso is best baited by a target holding Unstoppable or Ethereal Shift — the ult goes on full cooldown for zero value

• Zero sustain and low durability — she cannot absorb a committed dive Strong evidence
• Damage is entirely aim-gated; a Holliday who is not hitting heads contributes very little Strong evidence
• Every one of her tools is telegraphed — a visible barrel, a visible pad, a targeted lasso Strong evidence

• Powder Keg Knockup into a Crackshot headshot is her kill combo — while airborne you cannot strafe and the headshot is effectively guaranteed Strong evidence
• 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 Strong evidence
• Crackshot ignores damage falloff, so distance does not actually protect you from her burst the way it does against other gun heroes Strong evidence
• Bounce Pad tier 3 delivers her whole team onto your backline from above with a landing Stun on arrival Strong evidence
• Stacked overlapping barrels in a tight interior create a burn zone that punishes holding a chokepoint at all Strong evidence

• Hold Unstoppable for Spirit Lasso — it is a targeted Stun-and-pull and Unstoppable simply negates it Strong evidence
• Shoot Powder Keg barrels to detonate them early, before you are inside the blast, and deny the Knockup that sets up Crackshot Strong evidence
• 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 Strong evidence
• Brawl her inside 10m: her roughly 2.1 shots per second and 10-round magazine lose badly to any SMG hero in close quarters Strong evidence
• 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 Strong evidence
• Stay grouped so that a lasso pull delivers you into your allies rather than into hers Strong evidence
• Against Holliday the item that changes the matchup is Slowing Hex, and not for the slow. It silences movement abilities and movement items — that is their dash, their blink, their Warp Stone Warp Stone 3,200 souls Tier 3ArmorInstantCast +16s Cooldown +30% Bullet Resist +6s Buff Duration and their Phantom Strike Phantom Strike 6,400 souls Tier 4ArmorPress +35s Cooldown +0.35s Cast Delay +8 Spirit Power +15% Weapon Damage +40% Move Speed +3s Slow Duration all turned off at once — and raises their gravity to 120% on top. At Tier II Spirit for 1,600 it is the cheapest way to convert a mobility advantage into a stationary target, and you deal the Spirit Damage needed to apply the follow-up. Strong evidence
• Spirit Lasso is one cast aimed at one person and that person is likely you, which changes the shape of the answer. Effective health is the wrong axis — a hero who can pick you out of a fight will simply wait until the number is beatable. 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 negates a single ability outright, which against a one-cast threat is a hundred percent mitigation for 3,200, and the read is easier than it sounds because a single-target ultimate has to be aimed at you to work. Strategic

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

• Holliday will be their Urn runner and you are the one who can stop it. The Urn cannot be voluntarily dropped — it comes loose only on melee, a Stun, or death — so chip damage and slows do not deny a delivery, your Hard CC does. Hold it for the carry rather than spending it on the approach fight, and note the favoured team gets +50% Bullet and Spirit Resist in a 60m bubble while carrying and depositing, which is why trying to burst the runner down usually fails. Documented

• Holliday 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

• Holliday 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
• Fight Holliday under cover — indoors, under walkways, inside stairwells. Taking away the vertical axis removes most of their kit's value before you spend a single item slot on it. Strategic
• Being knocked up against Holliday is worse than being slowed because it removes your inputs and, since 09-16-2026, slows now bite in the air at 35% value so even the landing is compromised. Your mobility is your defence, so position with the airborne failure case in mind: stand where being launched leaves you above your own team rather than above theirs, and keep a dash in reserve for the landing rather than spending both on the approach. Strategic

• Holliday fights from the air, which is exactly what Knockdown exists for: it applies +100% gravity to an airborne target (raised from +50% in March 2026) and its Stun scales with altitude, up to about +1.5s at 30m. The higher they commit, the harder the punish — and Debuff Resist will not shorten that Stun for them. Documented
• Against Holliday'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
• Slowing Hex (spirit T2) — Holliday's Spirit Lasso is what you are buying against here. Buy it when an enemy repeatedly uses a movement ability or item to dash, blink or fly out of your kill window. Documented
• Knockdown (spirit T3) — Buy whenever an enemy fights from the sky — it answers flying and airborne heroes and channelled aerial ultimates. What you are answering here: Holliday's Bounce Pad. Documented
• Phantom Strike (vitality T4) — Buy to catch flying or long-range heroes who otherwise never enter your range, and to Disarm a gun carry mid-burst. What you are answering here: Holliday's Bounce Pad. Documented

• Players buy Dispel Magic Dispel Magic 3,200 souls Tier 3ArmorInstantCast +45s Cooldown +10% Spirit Resist +3s Buff Duration +250 Heal Amount for Holliday and then discover it does nothing about Spirit Lasso. Dispel Magic purges non-ultimate negative effects only — anything sourced from an ultimate is outside its scope entirely. Work out which of Holliday's disables come off abilities and which come off the ult before you spend 3,200: the ability-sourced ones are purgeable, the ult is not, and for the ult you need either Unstoppable pre-cast or the discipline not to be there. Documented