Bull

Bull has a very aggressive playstyle, even against terrible matchups your goal should be to pressure the enemy team as much as possible and pick up kills with your super whenever you get the chance, but be careful not to overshot with your super.

Heist → His best gamemode because high hp and damage paired with a long range “dash” super are perfect to constantly rush and deal damage to the safe.

Brawl Ball → Rewards quick aggression and progressing up the map, which fits his tanky playstyle, as well as a lot of potential to make plays with the ball

Gem Grab → Bushy map structures that allows bull to sneak into positions and ambush enemy brawlers, can be helpful to steal the gems

Bull excels in closed and/or bushy maps, especially when there's a few unbreakable walls he can use to stop his super. Try to avoid open mids and maps like Ring of Fire where most of the action takes place in an open space.

EFFECTIVE:

Damage → Helps finish off opponents, changes quite a few interactions and comes in clutch really often. Pairs really well with both star powers, tough guy allows more survival at Gear hp threshold and it accentuates berserkers strength in massive dps with both being active most of the time.

Health → As for most tanks, the extra healing helps stay alive and keep the pressure up for longer without the need to retreat too far back

Speed → Must have for any heavily bushy maps, lets bull close gaps much quicker and sneak up on enemies more easily.

Gadget Charge → Paired with stomper it can help bull deal with unfavorable matchups throughout the whole match. You shouldn´t be relying on stomper enough for this Gear, though.

Super charge → Pretty handy if you know how to utilize his super to its full potential, helps with chaining and allows for some super combos with stomper.

INEFFECTIVE:

Shield → The health increase isn´t significant enough to justify using it over the other Gears.

Vision → Completely useless, bull has to be really close to fight an enemy so you will know where they are without the need for vision Gear.

This section will be divided into 3 parts, ranging from essential to borderline useless. The further you read, the less important the mechanics will be.

When not to super: Don't act on impulse, always think of where your super will end. Try not to use it for immediate damage and get left behind, granting your enemies an open net or landing too far from the action.

Map edge / unbreakable walls: You can use unbreakable walls or map edges to stop your super as a cheap stomper for an easy kill. The wall might block the super knockback if they are too close to it, making it harder to get the kill before the enemy can react. If they are too far, the knockback will end before your super reaches the wall, so be careful when doing this against brawlers like shelly. Use stomper to avoid this if necessary.

Self passing with super and stomper (or using a wall to bounce): Self-passing means kicking the ball and using a map edge or stomper to catch it. There’s many ways to do this, but these are the ones that you’ll most commonly use:

1. Kicking the ball and using stomper to catch it is a quick and reliable way to self pass, and with the right timing you can catch the ball as you break a wall.

2. Kicking the ball and ending you super against the map edge, same as the first method, saving a gadget but being more limited.

3. There’s also multiple ways to score by bouncing the ball off a wall and using your super for wallbreak. The most effective one is using the wall behind you for the bounce and breaking the one in front, creating an opening for the ball.

Stomper timing: There are two ways to time stomper:

1. When knocking someone in the same direction as your super, stomp just before the knockback ends, allowing you to shoot right when they land for full damage and no reaction time for your opponent. Good timing and super angle is needed for this, so even though it´s the best way to use your gadget, it's not as consistent as the 2nd method.

2. Stomp right after hitting someone, stopping really early to get a shot off quickly from a longer distance, trading damage for a guaranteed hit. This should be used to finish off opponents and get a kill without the risk of dying or being damaged.

super though Crowd Control: One of the best and most interesting uses for bull's super is avoiding crowd control abilities (as only stuns, single projectile pulls and special supers [Willow, Cordelius] can stop it). This, paired with stomper, allows you to super right through things like Shelly's super and getting a kill in the process, but the timing for some of these interactions needs to be really precise or you will be too early or too late for it to work. You can use this to avoid knockback from jump supers such as Surge's or Primo's as well, which can lead to a kill right as they land.

Waiting for an opportunity: Wait for the enemies to use up any abilities that can stop your super (like stuns) or deal too much damage for you to survive. This applies to gadgets, supers and even attacks. Also make sure they aren't close to getting it or don't have enough ammo to recharge their super before you get to them. There's a few specific interactions that don't involve any crowd control abilities where this concept is key to winning the matchup, but those will be covered in the interactions section.

Holding ammo: When you are chasing an enemy after a poorly timed stomper or simply forcing them into a corner, save your ammo so you can use it all when you catch up to them and get as much value as possible from the attacks.

super through walls as “shield”: (Especially when you are on low hp) You can super into an enemy behind a wall and they won't be able to kill you before the super gets to them, as the wall will shield you until it breaks. Really useful for surprise attacks with stomper or anything that stops your super.

T-Bone usage: People tend to get overconfident when they are fighting a low hp bull. That's why the best way to use T-Bone is healing yourself before dying to get extra value out of either star power and turn back on the enemies. Another use case is right before charging when on low to mid hp, making sure you won't die before your super ends.

Shoot before super: If you are close enough to an enemy, you should fire an attack right before using super so your next one only takes a super hit and a full attack to recharge without using super charge gear. Really useful to start super chains.

Aim to hit through pets: Aim manually up close if there are any spawnables blocking the brawler you are going for (like Tara's “support from beyond” gadget) as you want to kill the enemy first and then get rid of the pets instead of using auto-aim and waste ammo shooting at them.



From now on, the mechanics listed won’t be necessary to the average player, but still important for anyone looking to really step up their bull gameplay.

super chaining: super chaining means charging multiple supers in a short period of time, with the chance of snowballing into a double kill or a teamwipe. Although not required, using stomper can keep your chain going for longer, as it makes it significantly easier to land on top of an enemy.

Ideally, your first super should hit an unbreakable wall or map edge, killing an enemy, recharging super, and saving stomper to immediately chain onto the nearest enemy. If the next target is close to Bull's super endpoint or you can use the environment to stop your super once again, save stomper for a 3rd kill, and so on.

Always keep track of your hp and which brawler you are supering into. A high damage brawler will leave you weak and make it risky to go for another target, so you should only chain if your hp is high enough to survive the next interaction.

With super gear it will take one super hit and one attack to recharge. This allows for massive burst damage (enough to take down most brawlers) and insane mobility by using the chained super as further engage or as a retreat that finishes your enemy off. (This can also be done without the gear, but you will need to take ¼ of your max hp worth of damage because of tank trait)

The usual combo is → super in, attack, super out → If done fast enough with a good knockback from super, the opponent should have very little reaction time. You can add a 2nd shot between supers for tanky brawlers or simply ignore them and go for the next enemy.

Saving ammo is key, and if you ever run out of it on low hp, your best bet is to use super, either to reload during its duration, “stunning” the opponent to avoid getting shot and killing them as soon as the knockback is over or to get to a safe place. If your hp isn’t too low, just wait for your ammo normally or super towards a different target and come back right after with a chained super. This is a lot of info, so just try to slowly understand all of it, recognize the patterns and incorporate it into your gameplay.

Block Crowd Control with walls: Stand next to walls to block the effect from knockbacks and get an easy kill on any brawler that relies on keeping you away from them.

Pinching: You can force the enemy team into your teammates by using super above or to their side, pressuring them in the opposite direction instead of going for a direct kill. Only do this against enemies who you can run into and force them to stay away. Brawlers like Maisie have no issues pushing you back, and you won’t have a super to work with.

Overshooting: When using super to get a kill on someone running away from you (like an enemy gem carrier), aim it slightly upwards so the only escape for your enemy is going downwards. This way you force them into your spawn and can get help from your teammates, while if you let them get to their spawn they will be the ones getting help from their teammates. If you are using a map edge at mid-close range, they usually won’t react in time and get hit by the super, which is a free kill.

Aiming chip shots for more damage: Aim shots at medium to long range. Predicting where an enemy is going can help land an extra bullet. Should be used if a brawler like colette is dashing close to you, as they will run into the full shot while auto-aim might only hit one or two pellets.

Cornering someone into walls / map edge: As a tanky brawler you can use your hp to apply pressure easily, so take advantage of it by forcing enemies into corners or map edges where their movement is most restricted and close the distance for a kill.

Delayed hypercharge activation (mid super): Using your hypercharge mid super can be a good way to bait out the opponents' high damage or pushback abilities, and shield yourself in reaction to that. You will take more damage from attacks until you activate it, but it's worth wasting those abilities to get better value out of the hypercharge when the super ends.



These next few mechanics are extremely situational and inconsistent. They are not relevant and rarely get any use during matches. You can stop reading here if you are not interested.

The “Glue Sniffer” strategy: If there’s any unbreakable wall that is around water, it is possible to go through it with bull’s super as you are not allowed to stand on top of water, so the game pushes you straight past the unbreakable wall. The super angle can drastically change the direction in which you’ll come out of it, and this is specific to each map, so it’ll be covered in Pika’s video showcase of the mechanics.

The “Pedrino”: You can do a bounce + wallbreak dribble without a second wall to bounce the ball off. This was discovered by Pedrino13, and the way to do it is standing right next to the wall, aiming the ball at the bottom of the 3rd box in either direction and using super immediately after at a roughly 45 degree angle in that direction. This will break the 3 walls and let the ball bounce off the side of the 4th one and back to bull, who can use stomper to grab it. This pretty much needs a video to really understand what’s going on, so it will be covered in Pika’s video showcase of the mechanics as well.

The “Mastermind”: If your super ends inside a wall without breaking it, the game will push you out with a falling animation. During that small period of time you won’t take damage from any attack, making it possible to dodge basically anything if timed correctly. This can also be done on water using stomper (as normally aiming your super won’t let it end on top of water), pushing you into the closest part of the map.

super into minecart: This is specific to minecart madness, a gem grab map. You can super into the minecart and get knocked back close to an enemy. It will take 2000hp (4000hp if you hit two wagons at once) so it´s not recommended unless you are on high hp and sure of what you are doing.

Stu → Bull’s super is quite slow, so it’s not too hard for a Stu to dash out of the way. Because of this, avoid using super against Stu as much as possible. His dps is low compared to other counters, so stay calm and tank shots until he’s out of ammo and can’t dash too far away or until you find a better target. Try not to fight him unless you have no other choice, especially with Zero Drag.

Rosa → Shooting at rosa while her super is active will deal close to no damage, so if she engages, charge your super and get away or, if you can afford to tank a few shots, cancel one of her attacks with knockback to stop her from chaining a 2nd super and save the rest of your ammo to fire when the shield runs out.

Gale → His jump pad gadget can help bull get to key points easily in maps like Split or Kaboom Canyon. Both his star powers allow bull to catch up to enemies, and the super can send them flying straight into him.

Gus → His super grants bull a few extra thousand hp that can make a difference supering into multiple enemies, and it stacks on top of tough guy, making it more effective when on low hp

Gray → The mere existence of a dimensional door going from your side to the enemy while having a bull on your team can help take up map space, as they have to avoid getting close to it or risk being jumpscared by a shotgunner. Especially now that hypercharge exists and using a super close to the enemies can end in a teamwipe or double kill fairly often.

Primo → Both are high hp tanks with an engage super, so it's really easy to overwhelm enemies and make a big play when both supers are charged.

Healers in general → Heals are useful on any aggressive brawler so they can keep pressuring without dying, but for bull specifically those heals have extra value due to the damage reduction from tough guy.