Understanding Items in Deadlock

This article will provide a general overview of how items work in Deadlock to help new players succeed.

While Deadlock is truly in a category of its own it does share many similarities with the MOBA genre, and like other MOBAs one of the most important mechanics is how you upgrade yourself with items. This article will provide a general overview of how items and the Curiosity Shop work in Deadlock to help you reach your full potential in every game.

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Although Deadlock does provide you with the ability to save others’ builds in the shop, you will find that developing your own understanding of when to use each item will improve your performance significantly. As you play through a match, you will collect a currency called Souls from completing objectives, killing minions, and killing heroes. These Souls allow you to purchase items from the Curiosity Shops found throughout the map and within your base. Items are one of the most crucial aspects of Deadlock. They increase survivability, damage, power, and more. If you know what you’re doing in the Curiosity Shop, they can turn a lost game into a win. At the beginning of a game your hero can equip a total of twelve items, three from each category in the Shop.

When you visit a Curiosity Shop in game you will see three main categories of items: Weapon, Vitality, and Spirit. In each category there are four tiers of items, with each tier costing more Souls than the last. Generally, the higher the tier, the more benefits the item will provide to your hero. If you hover your cursor over the tiers, you will see that in addition to the benefits from each item each tier provides an additional flat bonus - weapon damage for Weapon items, base health for Vitality items, and spirit power for Spirit items. Now that we know how to obtain items and how items are organized, let’s delve deeper into each of the three categories.

Weapon Items help you kill enemy heroes and minions faster, with all weapon items providing an increase in weapon damage. They can also increase your range, fire rate, ammo, and more. Generally, if you are winning your lane early and getting hero kills, it is best to increase your advantage by spending Souls on further damage increases to get even farther ahead of the enemy team.

Vitality items increase your hero's survivability. All vitality items give your hero an increase in base health, with certain items increasing speed, healing, and providing shields. There are two types of shields; Spirit Shields will give you a shield against Spirit damage, a good thing to pick up if you are receiving a lot of damage from enemy abilities, the other is Bullet Shield, which will give you a shield against weapon damage. To further increase your survivability, you can pick up Spirit/Bullet Resist items. If you are having a tough time surviving, Vitality Items are a must buy. Pay attention to the type of damage you are receiving (bullet or spirit) and consider buying vitality items that increase your resistance to that type of damage on top of health increases.

Spirit items are not quite as straightforward as the other two categories, they increase your hero’s Spirit Power. Spirit Power increases the effectiveness of your hero’s abilities and other items. When hovering over your hero’s abilities you will see how much spirit power increases your ability damage. Generally, you will want to invest more Souls into spirit items for heroes who can take greater advantage of their ability damage increase.

For example, McGinnis’ main source of damage comes from her weapon and turrets, and her abilities do not receive a very large Spirit Power increase. As such, she would not be able to utilize Spirit Items as well as Lash, who receives a greater increase in damage from Spirit Power and is always using his abilities to deal damage. On top of ability damage increases, specific spirit items can increase your ability range, duration, and reduce cooldowns.

Remember earlier in the article it was mentioned that your hero can obtain twelve items at the beginning of the game. That’s because, later on, you can obtain a total of sixteen items. Deadlock has four slots locked by default called flex slots that can be unlocked through completing objectives throughout the match. To unlock each slot your team will need to destroy all enemy guardians, destroy two enemy walkers, destroy all enemy walkers, and destroy an enemy shrine. These flex slots can hold any category of item, this provides a serious advantage so try and complete these objectives as soon as you can.

As Deadlock is in alpha, the developers are consistently updating the game and making significant changes to the Curiosity Shop items. This means that any list of what items are best will very quickly become outdated. You can see this with public builds in the Curiosity Shop. Most builds that are only a couple weeks old are already generally outdated. Through gameplay, you will begin to recognize that on top of items making your hero stronger, certain items will counter other heroes. Does Haze keep killing you with her ult? Try buying Metal Skin. Is Bebop killing you with his sticky bomb? Try buying Debuff Remover. However, as mentioned earlier, the game is always changing, so be sure to check the patch notes to see if any items have been changed.

While Deadlock’s Curiosity Shop is much more streamlined than other MOBAs’ item shops, the nature of playing an alpha means that is always changing. Instead of relying on public builds, try to make your own. Knowing what items to use in what situations will give you an incredible advantage over your opponents. As a rule of thumb, if you are winning you want to win harder. Spend more Souls on Weapon and Spirit Items, and if you are losing early, consider spending more Souls on Vitality Items to increase your survivability. Remember you are alpha testing while playing Deadlock, don’t be afraid to experiment with builds and try something new!