5 Tips for Beginners in Deadlock

Valve’s new MOBA hero shooter Deadlock can look daunting for many players who may be unfamiliar with the tactical nature of MOBAs or the chaotic nature of Hero Shooters. These tips are aimed at the new players to help them to get in the habit of using various aspects of the game to give them an edge!

Valve’s new not-so-secret MOBA shooter Deadlock has taken the gaming community by storm, and with more and more creators such as the likes of AverageJonas switching over to play the game, you may be tempted to get ahold of an invite and try out the game for yourself.

However, there is much to learn about Deadlock as a whole. It combines the high-intensity action of MOBAs like League of Legends and DOTA with the flashpoint reaction and skill of a hero shooter like Overwatch and Valorant into a high-demand, high-skill ceiling game that can often be punishing to new players. But worry not, with these five tips, you will find yourself getting picks, farming Flame Horizons, and dominating games soon enough.

See more: Deadlock blog on Tacter

Coming from League of Legends, you may be averse to farming the Jungle camps that spawn throughout the various areas of the map. After all, the Jungle usually is reserved for one person -- the Jungler. However, in Deadlock, there is no Jungler. Everyone is a laner, and the Jungle is there to share for everyone. And they’re not just worth a small penny either, taking the time to dip out of lane during the early laning phase and grabbing a small camp of monsters while your laner is basing can net you up to 135 souls, a little shy of a third of the souls you need for your first tier one item.

Soul differences are humongous in the early game, with soul count dictating when you unlock more abilities, and also how many upgrade points for skills you can allocate. These small amounts of soul increases can be a huge difference early game and can likely influence whether you end up dying to your laner or dominating.

In a similar vein, if you don’t see any lanes pushed into you during the mid-to-late game, go for a Jungle camp! The medium monsters give you 95 souls each and the large monsters give you a whopping 240 souls each. With at least three of each respective monster spawning in their own camps, a quick pass through the Jungle may just be the edge you need to buy that crucial item for the next teamfight. If you are playing characters who need a ton of tier 4 items, like Haze, Wraith, and Seven, then consider grabbing a camp or two as you rotate between lanes or right after you push in a wave. Just… don’t go farming when the rest of your team is having a giant brawl in mid.

However, be warned: farming Jungle comes with a heavy burden. Not only are you committing time to Jungling -- which may end up being a detriment to your team if they need you in an upcoming teamfight -- but the souls the jungle monsters reward you with are unsecured souls. These souls slowly tick down to being secured status after obtaining them, but if you were to be caught out and killed while carrying unsecured souls, they will drop and be available to be picked up by your enemies. This means that if you aren’t careful, the large bounty of souls that you spent the past few minutes farming could all potentially be handed over to the enemy on a silver platter, which is never a good thing.

As such, as soon as you farm enough to buy an item, retreat immediately. Whether it's to the hidden shop, or a lane shop that’s still open, or even home base shop, retreat immediately to spend these unsecured souls, because while an enemy can take your unsecured souls, they cannot take a purchased item.

As you are rotating from your lane or finishing up your current Jungle camp, you may notice several destructible objects. Some are wooden crates, others are small golden urns, and some could even be pottery vases. All of these items are destructible, and I highly recommend taking the time to quick melee them as you pass by. The crates have a notable chance to drop unsecured souls, which give a quick boost to your wallet if you’re able to make it to the shop before the enemy Mo and Krill burrow behind you and hit you with their combo as the enemy Wraith guns you down.

However, the real treasure is the golden urns. These little trinkets have the chance to drop small but permanent buffs to your character, whether it be more max HP, a bit of extra spirit power, or additional magazine storage or bullet fire rate. These buffs are completely random but collect enough of them over the course of the match, and you will definitely feel the effects. If you are playing Haze, Wraith, or Ivy, you will definitely feel a smile forming on your face every time you break a golden urn and see that fire rate or magazine size upgrade waiting for you. And if you are playing Abrams, Warden, or Mo and Krill, that extra HP will stack up to ensure you are going to be nigh impossible to kill in a fight.

Like all shooter games, when the combat gets up close and personal, there is an option to duke it out melee range. Each hero comes pre-equipped with two melee attacks: a quick melee and a charged melee. Quick melees do less damage, but come out instantaneously, while their charged counterparts do heavy damage and have long reach, but are predictable and require the character to move in an often predetermined dash. In lane, these melees can be used to secure lane creeps. Souls do not spawn when you melee a minion, so they can be used to completely deny your enemy any chance at stealing away some of your souls. With the purchase of Melee Lifesteal and other similar items, they can also be a nice way to quickly top off your health from the relentless poke of your enemies.

However, when using them against an enemy player, use them with caution. Each hero also comes pre-equipped with a parry, which makes them enter a defensive stance where any melees on them during that time will cause the attacker to be stunned for up to 3 seconds. While there is a significant cooldown to the parry and no cooldown on the melee, the right timing can prove devastating for the attacker as it allows the defender to retaliate with their full kit unopposed. So, when going for a melee on an enemy player, it is recommended to either try to bait out their parry, or combo your melee with a crowd control move like Seven’s Static Electricity, Dynamo’s Kinetic Pulse, Haze’s Sleep Dagger, or Abrams’s Shoulder Charge.

Each ability in the game has their own cooldown, with many of them being over 30 seconds in the early game. These abilities offer you or your enemy massive advantages, but they could also make them sitting ducks when they’re down. For example, Wraith can be incredibly dominant in lane, but she has an exceptionally long cooldown on her teleport, Project Mind, and her attack speed buff, Full Auto, during the early laning phase, with her only reliable form of poke being either Card Trick (which is dependent on her shooting enemies to build charge) and her gun.

If you can bully her health down early, you may force her to expend Project Mind, leaving her vulnerable for the next minute as you poke her down with your abilities. Conversely, a good Wraith could build charges on her Card Trick, and immediately all-in her enemy once she unlocks her ultimate, Telekinesis, and unleash everything on the enemy she lifts. Cooldown counting is incredibly difficult to learn, but it is even more rewarding to master.

Players coming from MOBA games like League may find it exceptionally difficult to manage four skills and up to four more active items when the average item build in League features no more than two active items. But Active Items offer an exceptional edge compared to their passive counterparts, and it is worth it to buy more than just a few of them.

Here are some notable examples of active items that can help turn the tide of a fight:

• Metal Skin: Makes you completely immune to bullet damage for a short time, making the likes of Haze, Wraith, McGinnis, and Vindicta completely useless against you
• Knockdown: After channeling for two seconds, stun the target. This will help you bring down the pesky enemies who always seem to be just out of reach. This ability allows you to knock Seven out of his terrifying ultimate and also interrupt the flights of both Grey Talon and Vindicta, allowing your team to then collapse on them to take down the pesky snipers.
• Warp Stone: Essentially Flash from League of Legends, this 3000-soul item allows you to quickly blink to a nearby location, giving you the edge you need to escape a potentially devastating combo.
• Unstoppable: Renders you completely immune to crowd control for a short time, this is perfect for preventing Haze’s Sleep Dagger, Mirage’s Tornado, Mo and Krill’s Combo, and many other CC abilities that may interrupt your actions
• Echo Shard and Refresher: Echo Shard instantly reloads your last used ability’s cooldown (except ultimates) and Refresher instantly reloads all of your abilities’ cooldowns. Echo Shard has a 20-second cooldown while Refresher’s is over a minute long. These items could be useful in various combo plays, such as Bebop attaching two bombs onto a hooked enemy, or Seven ulting twice, one after the other.
• Curse: Interrupts, Disarms, and Silences one unlucky enemy for a short time. It will shut down anyone and everyone from being useful for a short time.

When mastered, these active items could be the key difference between your team winning a fight or losing it, many of them also offer passive abilities as well, so with the right itemization, you can tear through just about any enemy while your enemies can’t do anything to stop you.

When mastered, these active items could be the key difference between your team winning a fight or losing it, many of them also offer passive abilities as well, so with the right itemization, you can tear through just about any enemy while your enemies can’t do anything to stop you.

Deadlock is an exceptionally fun mix of the MOBA format with the popular Hero Shooter. While it's still rough around the edges (which is to be expected for a game in early development), its addicting combo has already proven to be very effective and beloved in the gaming community. So step forward and into the streets of New York with confidence.