Rebalancing Hillbilly's Chainsaw
This has been a minor gripe I've had with this killer for a while: Every billy I've played against only uses the chainsaw and nothing but the chainsaw. What this results in is the match either being a loss because there really is no reason to heal against him when he can instadown you, or the billy player rage quits because he can't land the saw sprint. There's really no in-between.
To get more to the point, I wish to propose a rebalance to Hillbilly's chainsaw that adds a cooldown to the saw in exchange for empowering his M1 during this period.
Just to be clear to any Billy mains reading this: I'm not wanting Overheat back. This is something to remind y'all that BILLY HAS A HAMMER and to make that hammer more appealing to use.
For the rough draft of this suggestion, I will be calling this mechanic Heat Transfer.
Heat Transfer
- When the Hillbilly finishes a chainsaw sprint, the chainsaw cannot be used again for 15 seconds.
- During this period, Hillbilly's hammer is empowered with a visual blue flame like he gets when in Overdrive.
- If the Hillbilly damages a healthy survivor while the hammer possesses this blue flame, the survivor is inflicted with Deep Wound and the chainsaw's cooldown immediately ends.
The goal of this is to make the chainsaw less appealing to rely on by giving Hillbilly a reason to not use it. While I agree that the old Overheat mechanic was way too punishing, I understood the purpose of it which was to make Hillbilly less reliant on the chainsaw and remind you that BILLY HAS A HAMMER. This is the main goal of this suggestion: Making the hammer more appealing to use over prioritizing the saw.
That is all. Lemme know what you folks think, and just remember the point of this: BILLY HAS A HAMMER.
Comments
I don't think the hammer actually needs a rebalance? Especially if Survivors aren't healing, there will be times where a hammer hit is faster than trying to fish for a chainsaw hit. If the Billy player isn't taking those opportunities, that's due to their playstyle, it's not really the hammer's fault. They probably just want to keep learning the chainsaw, or consider it a matter of pride that they minimise M1 hits.
You want a change that forces players to use a feature, which they don't use as often as you think they should, not because it's not strong enough, but because they personally do not want to use it and are having fun playing without it… Sorry, even if your Heat Transfer state was actually well made, designing with this kind of intent never ends well.
Billies do use the hammer it just a different type of billy that uses them as Lexilogo said its different playstyles
Some billies will only go for the chainsaw even at strong loops.
Some will only go for butt revs when you are healthy otherwise they just m1.
I prefer versing a Billy who always tryna get the chainsaw shots.
This is a weird take. Every killer has an ability and 9/10 times players will exclusively use that ability…. That would be like complaining about Huntress using her hatchets. People can play the game how they want. If a billy wants to shoot themselves in the foot for using their chainsaw when it's not working that's on them.
Also, Billy's tech is very unique and if you learn it can be very satisfying and effective. It's really hard to use though and takes a long time to learn. That's all these players are doing.
I just want him to have a cooldown after cancelling his M2
He can insta M1 after using his chainsaw
What exactly is wrong about using my power?
Chucky lives of his power, huntress lives of her power, spirit lives of her power, deathslinger lives of his power, same with blight (2-1 placed killers strengthwise btw), nurse (1-2 placed), trickster, hag, st vecna, and so on and so on. Every single one of those killers could also m1 if they want (well nurse not really, but even there some people are running into her somehow xD), but I don't play those killers to m1 survivors - I play them because I love their power and want to use it because it's fun.
In blights case they literally nerfed his ability to play without his power so he has to use it, so it's even on purpose by bhvr that you rely on your power as killer xD
The issue isn't using your power it's using ONLY your power and ignoring your M1.
Huntress, trickster, blight, bubba, chucky, wesker (for the most part), demo (for a huge part) and many more probably. Most killers use their ability only if they are cabable of, there's nothing wrong with power only killers. What exactly is your problem with that?
The others in that list (except for bubba, but those reservations are for another time) don't have an instadown as part of their power (huntress can with an addon, besides the point tho). The reason I hold Hillbilly up here and not the others is because his power tends to screw him over for those who want to just get the instadown with no awareness of when the situation calls for it. "Chasing the instadown high" to put it bluntly.
Closest example I can give is this match I had in Blood Moon 2025 (linked below), where I inadvertently caused a Hillbilly to rage quit after he missed four chainsaw sprints in a row before any generators popped. Granted this was on Gideon Meat Plant which is the least balanced map in the game, but you can clearly see the Billy had multiple opportunities to hit me with the hammer and instead bit themselves in the ass from chasing the instadown high (Frame 1 I'm up in his face and he revs the saw instead, which breaks a wall that sets up his rage quit)
https://streamable.com/g0gech
I won't push for this change any further since it's clearly disliked, but I wanted to clear up the issue I was seeing with Hillbilly in particular, as you seemed to assume it was just with Killer powers in general. The intention was to teach Hillbillies an important thing called time and place.
I see what you mean now, but I think that's rather a problem with beginners (no matter if you ragard it to the game as a whole or hillbilly) that could be fixed with actually helpful tutorials. I think changing his power to be weaker with his chainsaw just to be stronger with the hammer is the wrong way to fix this - in the end it's not his power that makes people force themself to use the chainsaw only, but the fact they believe it would be better to hit it, instead of using the chainsaw.
I mean I admit that instadowns as a mechanic kinda make normal hits unattractive as a whole, but in the end you can still teach people to choose the right tools for certain situations. That alone could already fix your problem. (Or not, I know that the hammer is usefull sometimes and still choose to user chainsaw only, it's just more fun :D)
Now that I think about it, moving power from the saw to the hammer doesn't sound as appealing as I initially thought. I do still believe there should be something to teach players time and place for power usage (better tutorials being one).
And yeah, instadowns do make M1 attacks unattractive (Slaughtering Strike). This is why I stated I had my own reservations about Bubba, boiling down to him sacrificing one of Billy's upsides to remove all the downsides (Billy moves fast and can instadown, but has less control and can only down one. Bubba moves slower than Billy with his saw, but has full control and can down as many as his duration allows him to).