Mastering Deadlock by Valve Your Ultimate Guide to Dominating the Lanes

Want to master the game mechanics? If you’ve gotten access to Deadlock but your first game was a disaster, don’t worry! In this article, we’ll break down all the essential elements to improve your gameplay and increase your chances of victory, so the game won’t be as painful as your first day!

In just two months and without any promotion, Deadlock has gathered over 170,000 players. It’s a 6v6 shooter (like the original Overwatch), where your team of heroes aims to breach enemy defenses, reach the guardian (the heart of the enemy fortress), and destroy it. The game has four lanes with waves of troops (minions), similar to League of Legends or Dota 2. Killing these minions earns you souls, provided you land the last hit. These souls are the in-game currency used to exchange for bonuses in shops around the map, much like gold in Dota 2.

Inspired by a guide from Kyo on Steam. (Updated on September 10, 2024)

Understanding the Basics of Deadlock

To win a match in Deadlock, you need to destroy your enemies’ buildings, infiltrate their base, and kill their Patron, a brass orb with a face.

The strange voice you hear during the match belongs to your Patron, whom you must defend at all costs (he will reward you throughout the game based on your team’s performance). The map is horizontally symmetrical and divided into four vertical lanes connecting the enemy base to yours.

Each lane is defended by a series of towers with high health points. Periodically, a group (or “wave”) of “creeps” or “minions” spawns in each lane, moving along and attacking enemy heroes, creeps, and buildings they encounter. Killing enemy units grants Souls, the primary currency of Deadlock, which can be used to buy items making you more powerful.

In simple terms, your main objectives are:

• Gather Souls to purchase items
• Destroy enemy buildings
• Defend your own side of the map

Aiming to kill enemy heroes won’t always be helpful; by merely farming souls and destroying enemy buildings, you’ll quickly become stronger than your direct opponent.

Understanding the Lanes and Assignments

Lanes in the game are identified by their color on the map and transit lines. Player assignments to these lanes are determined by the Deadlock Matchmaking Rating (MMR), although assignment remains largely random.

There are no fixed roles for each hero, meaning that every player must actively participate in resource gathering and team advancements.

The items you buy and the order you upgrade your skills will define the role you play with your hero, though some heroes naturally lean towards specific roles (support, tank, DPS).

Game Strategies and Resource Management

How to Choose Your Hero

To increase your chances of playing with your preferred hero, right-click to favorite them during hero selection before the match starts. Favoriting a hero doesn’t guarantee that you’ll get them, but it significantly increases the odds. If you select three heroes and favorite two, you’ll almost always get one of the two every match.

There are three priority levels when selecting a hero in Deadlock, marked by colors: white, yellow, and purple. White is the lowest priority and purple is the highest.

There are already hero tier lists in Deadlock, but currently, tier lists mostly evolve according to community build discoveries.

Managing Souls and Staying Ahead

If you’re having trouble collecting souls, it might be because you’re focusing too much on attacking enemy heroes and not enough on your last hits (landing the final blow to kill enemy minions and destroy green orbs) or denying (destroying red orbs that appear after your troops die).

The laning phase lasts 10 minutes. During this phase, you’ll share your farm with nearby teammates. You and your allies get the same amount of souls throughout the laning phase; after 10 minutes, the souls are divided equally among nearby allied heroes (divided by two if you’re two players, by six if you’re six players).

Whenever possible throughout the game, make sure to kill jungle camps between primary objectives and defend waves of troops near your guardians or walkers to secure your last hits. Keeping a good soul rhythm also involves participating in eliminations by helping your teammates. Don’t focus solely on your last hit; think about aiding your allies.

Additionally, breaking crates and vases around the map after the three-minute mark can yield souls, while golden idol statues offer small permanent buffs that stack over time.

How to Save Your Ammunition

Lack of ammunition often occurs because you are shooting too much at enemies or excessively attacking full-life minions. You only need to shoot at the troops when their health is low enough to trigger their death animation, then shoot the soul orb that appears. The “Ammo Scavenger” item can help by returning ammo every time you successfully last hit a soul orb.

Understanding Soul Orbs

When you land the final hit on a troop, hero, or enemy structure, they release green soul orbs, which disappear after a short period, giving you their full value in souls. Enemies can shoot these orbs to deny you the souls, meaning they will receive the souls instead. It’s crucial to shoot quickly at orbs, but you can let them disappear if there’s no enemy threat nearby. If your aim isn’t the best or if you’re not in a position to shoot at orbs, you can secure your souls by melee killing the troops, which prevents the orbs from appearing.

Managing Difficult Lanes

If you’re struggling in your lane, play more cautiously and invest in regeneration items like Extra Regen, Restorative Shot, and Healing Rite. Stay behind cover, focus on denying soul orbs by killing your minions when the enemy is about to last hit them, and consider requesting a gank from your teammates.

Jungling

Jungling is valuable, and all heroes can benefit from it to some extent. There is no dedicated jungling role because camps respawn slowly, and troop waves offer greater rewards. Clear the jungle camps whenever you’re not engaged in major objectives. Camps are marked on the map with green triangles, and symbols vary to indicate their difficulty level. Additionally, “safe” camps contain Sinner Sacrifice machines that offer extra souls in exchange for health points.

Unsecured Souls and How to Secure Them

Unsecured Souls (Volatile Souls) are obtained from neutral jungle camps. These souls drop when you die and can be picked up by anyone. They gradually become secured over time, but it’s more reliable to secure them by spending them on items as soon as possible. The number of unsecured souls is indicated by a red icon next to your soul counter.

Levels, Skills, and Equipment

Levels and Skill Points

Your level is based on the total number of souls you collect in a match, whether they have been spent or not. By holding down the ALT key and hovering over the vial icon in the bottom left of your health bar, you can see when you will earn level bonuses, which include unlocking new skills, obtaining skill points (AP), and increasing your hero’s power stats, such as health and damage.

Buying Items

Items can be bought in shops located near each lane, in the middle of the map, and at your base. Lane shops close when the nearby guardian is defeated, but the base and middle secret shops remain open throughout the match.

Navigating the Item Shop

If the item shop seems complicated, you can check player build recommendations by clicking on the “Heroes” option in the main menu and selecting your hero.

During the laning phase, focus on buying multiple Tier 1 items to improve your performance in the lane, then move on to purchasing Tier 2 items as soon as possible to give you an edge. Each item category offers a specific bonus, such as increased weapon damage for weapon items or extra health for vitality items. For more detailed information, refer to upcoming guides on InsidePost.

Flexible Slots and Their Unlocking

Items in your inventory are sorted by type, with the rightmost block reserved for flexible slots. These slots can hold items of any category and are unlocked by defeating enemy objectives in the following order: a lane walker, the four enemy walkers, the base guardians of a lane, and one of the sanctuaries inside the enemy base.

Mastering Mechanics and Advanced Tactics

Learning Your Hero’s Role

To learn how to play your hero effectively, use the “Watch” tab in the main menu to observe matches, especially those featuring high-level players. You can also refer to our hero overview in Deadlock.

Understanding Spiritual Power

Spiritual power is a type of damage represented by the color purple, similar to weapon (or bullet) damage, which is orange. Some hero skills and stats scale with spiritual power, indicated by a purple star with an upward arrow. The exact scale can be viewed by holding the ALT key in-game.

Mastering the Dash Jump

Your stamina bar flashes blue to indicate the timing for a dash jump, which uses the same stamina as two dashes but covers more distance. This technique is useful for engaging, escaping, or moving quickly across the map.

It is also possible to wall jump in Deadlock since a recent update.

Melee Combat and Parrying

Melee attacks deal damage based on your level and weapon items. Parrying, by pressing F, stuns an enemy hero attacking you in melee, making them vulnerable to increased damage from your melee attacks. Parrying is particularly useful against heroes who rely heavily on melee, like Abrams. Using melee attacks also allows you to secure your last hits without the risk of deny.

Handling Objectives and Important Events

The Urn of Souls

The Urn of Souls is an objective that appears 10 minutes into the match in the chalk outlines on the yellow or purple lanes. You must carry it to the chalk-marked area on the opposite side of the map to collect souls for your team, with a 25% bonus for the carrier and +1 skill point. If the urn spawns in the yellow lane, take it to the spawn point in the purple lane, and vice versa.

The souls generated by the urn can be lost, so be sure to shoot or strike the souls before leaving after bringing it to the delivery point. The urn limits your ability to cast spells, use items, or shoot, but if you have a movement ability, you can activate it just as you pick up the urn for increased mobility.

The Mid-Boss

The mid-boss appears 10 minutes into the match and drops an item called the Rejuvenator after being defeated. This item grants your team faster respawns, boosts your troops with extra HP, and increases your rate of fire, aiding in pushing lanes. The mid-boss can only be damaged after passing a DPS check and must be actively attacking someone to be vulnerable. The Rejuvenator can be picked up by hitting it with a heavy strike, but beware, it can be stolen by the enemy team.

Check out our guide for securing and playing around Deadlock’s mid-boss.

Transit Line Mechanics

When attached to a transit line, you are stunned, injured, and often killed if hit by an enemy. Avoid