Hillbilly: Chainsaw Massacre

Teaching you to teach yourself. The guide to Skillbilly and starting the chainsaw massacre.

Intoduction

300+ Hrs billy 200~ hrs on other killers 300 hrs survivor here, R1 every season. I've killed all your favorite streamers.

Hillbilly in my opinion is the most fun and balanced killer in the game.

The Chainsaw

When you're starting out as billy forget M1 exists. I know other people are telling you "don't be afraid to go for hits" blah blah blah.

They're wrong. For the first week forget M1 exists, if it's possible straight up unbind it. Just try and chainsaw everything. Yes, you will lose games doing this. You will get embarrassed doing this. But don't worry about it - we're looking at getting good in the long run not short term easy to gain ranks.

The point of this exercise is threefold: 1) You will build muscle memory and a feel for the timing of the chainsaw 2) You will get an understanding of control for how the chainsaw moves 3) You will understand when the chainsaw doesn't work and thus when you should swing. It is much easier to dial back from over use than it is to work up from under use.

Next tip and this is important: Don't use add-ons. Ever. Forget they exist. I know people are going to tell you such and such add-on is OP, what add-ons are really good and so on. They aren't necessarily wrong but add-ons mess with the timing of the chainsaw at this point you just need to get used to it. After a couple weeks when you start getting good you can play around with them sometimes for fun but honestly the chainsaw doesn't even need add-ons.

Pallets

Next pallets: When starting you should try and kick as few pallets as possible. Pallets are time sinks even with brutal strength. Avoid breaking them unless it is needed. This will help you learn to spot safe and unsafe pallets. Unsafe pallets can be left the rest of the match even, serving as bait for future survivors and saving you time. A basic idea is a safe pallet usually has some sort of "long wall" or clutter meaning you can't hit the survivor before they slide across. Unsafe pallets are everything else. Again this is the same concept as overusing the chainsaw, it's easier to start breaking more pallets than it is to dial back and break less.

Tips and Tricks

I realize these tips aren't "specific" but the goal is to help you understand for yourself when you can chainsaw and when you can leave pallets. Rough guides to when to chainsaw will only cover specific scenarios and never really teach you how to make snap decisions and recognize things.

But here are some specific tips for good measure:

1) Never be afraid of getting stunned, waiting for survivors to drop pallets wastes more time and you will be punished

2) You can hold a chainsaw charge near release by tapping m2 quickly. Holding a chainsaw charge can often let you catch up to a running survivor as they try to juke back and forth in paranoia while you cut a straight line

3) When charging a chainsaw in melee range hold it for a second or two to let them try whatever juke they have planned then release and knock them down once they've committed and it's too late

4) When a survivor is doing circles around an object like a tree etc. usually their camera is out of position as a result and they can't properly see you or the tree or whatever is blocking you from view. Turn around instead of circling with them and 9 times out of 10 even good survivors will walk straight into you

5) After chainsawing there's a window where you can't attack, rev or break pallets or go for windows. Try to use this time to bodyblock. Getting stunned by a pallet in this time instantly removes the chainsaw cooldown and lets you act again. You can abuse this by letting a survivor stun you after you chainsaw to catch up. Likewise never be afraid to try and chainsaw a survivor going for or at a pallet. At best you hit them, at worst you get stunned and can instantly break it anyways other times you just chainsaw the pallet. Chainsawing a pallet instantly removes chainsaw cooldown. All good outcomes.

Perks and Builds

Good perks for the Billy are: Enduring, Brutal Strength, Deer Stalker, Nurses Calling, Whispers, Devour Hope, Agitation, Iron Grasp

Some good builds:

Flare2V's build: Enduring, Deer Stalker, Brutal Strength, Agitation. No time wasted, hunt, chase, down, hook, repeat. This is pretty much the baseline (slightly older) build for billy. Solid all around. This build means you don't have to be afraid of leaving survivors down to chase more.

KingDime's build: Whispers, Enduring, Brutal Strength, Agitation. Similar to before but Whispers instead of Deer Stalker. Helps you find survivors faster but you have less luxury to slug and need to hook.

Admiral_Bahroo's build: Enduring, Brutal Strength, Agitation, Nurse's Calling. Same idea as the others but Nurse's Calling takes the role of Deer Stalker. More of a modern build. Has slightly more situational use but you have a bit less confidence leaving survivors downed.

Zubatlels's build: Whispers, Deerstalker, Brutal Strength, Enduring; Deerstalker is great against top tier / aggressive survivors. Sometimes you don't have time to carry someone to a hook. Whispers is still needed to close out games. Lacking AGI/IG, you'll sometimes have to slug if they sabo.

Some people may disagree or dislike some of these streamers but they're objectively some of best and oldest Hillbilly players in the game. Some other streamers for you to checkout: OhTofu and Marth88.

How to Use Whispers

The icon in the bottom right for the perk lights up when a survivor is in your radius and is dark when none are. This is generally much more useful to pay attention to than listening for the actual whispers.

The main use for this perk (or at least the way I've had the most success using it personally) is just to tell you when you're in the wrong area. When the game starts do your normal gen patrol, if it doesn't light up move on immediately until it does then look around and you'll probably find them.

The survivor is roughly 32m away from you when the perk lights up. You can edge around the activation and make a circle in your head to get an exact fix.

If you are trying to hear the whispers or have a good headset they sound more like a zombie-like moan/groan more than an actual whisper.

Unless the survivors are very stealthy or there's only 1 or 2 left this is mostly a time saver perk, not a hunting perk. But utilized properly it's fairly good.

Closing

Also: Never camp. You can check the hook or stay relatively close, chainsaw back at the unhook or whatever, but camping is wasting the point of your hyper aggressive, map controlling ability. The ideal billy game is downing, hooking, finding someone else, downing, hooking while the other is unhooked and juggling survivors. Keeping them off generators until you start killing them and whittling them down or wipe them.

Good luck and if you have any questions just ask.

[Scarnopsa]

Just use primal bulb.

[MrRubik]

im pretty bad with the chainsaw havent been able to hit survivors with my chainsaw for about 2 matches, im gonna try this out and ill have to check in in about a week to see if im any better, thanks

[SeñorNoodleusMaximus]

great guide btw!

[SeñorNoodleusMaximus]

i've been playing Billy for a long time now and just now figured i'd read this for the hell of it, and you just checked basicly all of the things i do. i saw Flare2V play this when i first discovered this game and i've basicly just been using him as my "guru" of how to play killer, and i'm really happy i did. and thanks to that i'm consistantly R1 killer and got the p3 billy, cus why not :P

[『HORIZON』]

If this is true, I will be feared because I am able to use my chainsaw everywhere
If this is untrue, I will be the biggest tool in Dbd because I am unable to use my chainsaw everywhere

[Sujime]

<3

[faith]

"..I'm pretty sure they don't. How does add-ons that reduce cooldown mess with the timing?" You can chainsaw faster/more often and thus at a different timing than the vanilla chainsaw.

"not saying he's overpowered but you can't say he is the most balanced killer when he is your favorite killer, that's extremally biased" I didn't say I wasn't biased.

[EGYPT E92 M3]

do u see where it say imo? that stands for in my opinion

[Sirflash]

"Hillbilly imo is the most fun and balanced killer in the game."
Of course you are going to say he's balanced, what, are you going to call your favorite killer overpowered?
not saying he's overpowered but you can't say he is the most balanced killer when he is your favorite killer, that's extremally biased

[Scarnopsa]

''add-ons mess with the timing of the chainsaw'' I'm pretty sure they don't. How does add-ons that reduce cooldown mess with the timing?