Tips and Tricks for Winning in Deadlock

Valve’s Deadlock is currently in its Early Access Alpha, yet thousands of players are flocking to get invite codes for the fresh take on the MOBA shooter genre. While the game offers a decent tutorial on the game’s basic controls and mechanics, there are many other details left out that players struggle to figure out. These are the tips and tricks we learned so that you can understand Deadlock’s mechanics better.

Tip #1: Save your ammo for killing minions

Since lane minions give you a nice Soul reward for killing them, some players might immediately dump their entire magazine into one. However, this is actually sub-optimal since your early-game gun damage is barely enough to kill a single minion to take its soul. Instead of unloading all of your bullets trying to harvest one minion, you should save your ammo until one of the enemy minions is close to death. By the time you kill a minion, you’ll still have enough ammo to not only take its soul but also give you a period to deny your enemy their share.

Tip #2: Melee enemy minions

One mechanic that Deadlock never explains to you is that killing minions with a melee attack gives you the full soul reward without needing to shoot the soul to claim it. If you get a melee kill, this will stop your enemy from denying your soul reward.

However, be aware of your spacing before going in for melee, as enemy players may take advantage of you going out of position. Make sure that you are relatively safe before closing in with a melee last hit.

Tip #3: Use your zip lines for a quick escape

In Deadlock, you’re likely to take some heavy damage from a ganker or a really good enemy laner. If they’re chasing you down, remember that you can always run back to your zipline and use it as an escape tool. Not only do you get a lot of horizontal speed from using a zipline, but it can also provide an emergency source of vertical movement when you jump towards it. The movement you get from a zipline makes it hard for your opponents to finish you off.

This is especially handy when you’re running away from opponents looking to take you down, as you can head back to the base for quick healing and return to your lane with little downtime.

Tip #4: Farm as much as you can, even when outside your lane

Soul farming is an integral aspect of Deadlock’s gameplay, as this is your source of leveling up and buying endgame items. This applies for all phases of the game, even up to the endgame as Tier 4 items are very expensive yet extremely powerful.

If you’re roaming around the map for potential picks, always kill the jungle monsters (the eye turrets inside every building) since every second running around not doing anything is a second not getting souls to buy more items.

Tip #5: Objectives matter more than high kill counts

As a MOBA, it can be highly tempting to pad out your kill count, especially when you are fed souls. However, in the long run, going just for kills won’t be as beneficial to your team as going for map objectives. Destroying Guardians, Walkers, and Shrines is always a net positive for your team, while doing neutral objectives like the Spirit Urn and the mid-boss Rejuvenator elevates your other teammates into performing just as well as you.

Consider kills as buying your team enough time to do objectives instead of as a win condition, as even teams behind on kills can always come back by destroying your own turrets and closing the Soul deficit using the Spirit Urn.

Tip #6: Always go for the Spirit Urn

Since Deadlock never explains what the Spirit Urn does, here’s a brief guide on how it works.

The Spirit Urn will spawn at 10 minutes into the round, with a 30-second delay animation of the Urn coming down from the sky into the ground. When the Spirit Urn reaches the ground, anyone can pick it up. Once the Urn is picked up, the carrier must bring the Urn to the other side of the map and deposit it on an identical altar, which is marked by a blue square on your minimap.

While you are carrying the Urn, you are unable to cast any abilities or shoot your gun, meaning that you are virtually defenseless, but you can always drop the Urn if you need to fight back against your pursuers.

Once you or a teammate deposits the Urn, the entire team gets 1000 souls for free while the carrier is given 1 free ability point to spend. Think of depositing the Urn as giving the whole team 5 player kills worth of Souls for free. This objective is a great way to widen the item gap for the advantageous team while giving losing teams a means to catch up.

If you see a red square on the minimap, this means that the enemy team has the Urn and is looking to deposit it themselves, which should signal you to intercept the enemy carrier or defend the deposit spot.

Tip #7: Punch the Rejuvenator

If your team ever goes for the mid-boss to claim the reward, it’s important to know that killing the boss does not mean you get the Rejuvenator buff immediately. When the boss is dead, the crystal will slowly fall from the ceiling. It will only be claimable once it touches the ground. To get the Rejuvenator, you or any teammate must use a charged melee attack on the crystal.

However, enemy players can claim it for themselves if they punch it first, which could ultimately undo the hard work your teammate did on DPSing the midboss. To prevent your opponents from stealing the Rejuvenator, stand on the spot where it lands and execute a Parry before they can punch the crystal.

Tip #8: Know the value of jungle camps

The purpose of the jungle camps is to give players a means of earning souls outside the lanes. Each camp has either green, yellow or red jungle monsters, which is signified by the light underneath them. Green jungle monsters give 40-50 souls on kill, yellow around 90-100 souls, and red 200+ souls.

Red jungle monsters are especially valuable as the number of souls they reward is equivalent to killing an enemy hero, so if you have nothing else to do, try to jungle a little bit to build up your soul count for buying high-tier items.

Some buildings also have a machine called Sinner’s Sacrifice which you can punch to sacrifice your health for extra souls. This can be a little risky, but tanky builds with a lot of health regen can easily negate the health loss for easy souls.

Tip #9: Create your own build or copy one

The default beginner build is decent enough when you’re first learning how to play the game, but like any MOBA, creating a build that is suited for your hero and playstyle goes a long way in helping you win games more consistently. Some items like Glass Cannon, Colossus and Refresher are powerful for heroes that synergize with them perfectly, yet they usually never appear in the starter build.

If you don’t know what item build to make, you can always check out the community builds that are submitted in the in-game shop, which are made by players who understand the right items for the right hero.

Tip # 10: Learn the movement tech

Movement is a vital tool to your engagements in Deadlock, as this will help you chase down weak enemies or disengage from fights that you’re losing. Deadlock has a hidden mechanic called dash-jumping, where, after executing a dash, you have a small window to jump that lets you maintain the momentum of your dash for some extra movement speed. This window is indicated by your stamina bar flashing blue for a second. Take some time practicing this move in the hero sandbox so you can turn it into muscle memory.

The game also has other modes of movement aside from the basic stamina-consuming skills, like the Warp Stone and Magic Carpet items that can be bought in the store. Also, learn your hero’s available movement skills, such as Wraith and Pocket’s teleport, Ivy’s ultimate and Kelvin’s ice path.