Valve may have nerfed farming by extending respawn times for camps and reducing Soul values for neutral minions, but Deadlock Seven’s ability to harvest Souls remains uncontested.
With his powerful stuns, damage-over-time and area of effect (AoE) abilities, Seven is a menace to enemy players with the right build. He’s also touted as a beginner-friendly hero with a high skill ceiling focused more on positioning rather than aim, but how do you get the most out of this electric-charged villain?
Best Seven skills and playstyle for early game
One of the things we love most about Deadlock is how every Deadlock hero can be played in different ways. Seven is no exception to this rule, with his powerful but often underrated primary weapon, excellent synergy between abilities, and an eye-catching ultimate ability.
In this guide, we’re going to be concentrating on the area where he shines the most during early game and laning: farming (just don’t forget about those objectives while doing so!).
First, invest in Seven’s 3 ability, Power Surge, to ramp up damage against single and multiple targets. Power Surge adds shock damage to your Tri-Shot Blaster, which can bounce to nearby enemies, allowing you to cut through Troopers while you wait for jungle camps to spawn.
Next sink a point into his 1 ability, Lightning Ball, to rack up some satisfying damage-over-time kills. These two abilities synergize nicely, allowing you to harvest Souls for your team while creating a major threat to nearby players. Just send a Lightning Ball rolling down a busy corridor or into the middle of a minion camp, pop your 3 and mow down everything in your tracks. This is especially useful for creating lane pressure, or pushing enemy heroes out of lane.
With this toolset in your hands, push your lane up to the enemy’s objective, and cycle around neutral camps to farm more Souls. Seven needs to be focused on earning as many Souls as possible in order to unlock his Ultimate, which is a real game-changer. Always ensure your own Trooper wave is pushed as far forward as you can before entering the jungle, and keep an eye peeled for enemy heroes who are keen to take you down.
Speaking of enemy heroes, there’s nothing more annoying than being stunned before you can secure a kill. So, give them a taste of their own medicine by unlocking the last of Seven’s basic abilities, Seven’s 2, Static Charge.
This ability asks you to target an enemy within range to bully before activating, but it can also be alt-cast on yourself if you’re surrounded (or planning to jump right into the middle of something). After a short delay, Static Charge will detonate, stunning heroes for a short time and dealing damage to them and any enemies nearby. However, without any talent points invested into the skill, Static Charge’s small radius does constrain the ability’s utility, so save it for when the enemy gets too close for comfort.
By this point, Seven will feel much punchier than he started out, with the satisfying tick-tick-tick feedback of damage-over-time letting you know you’re doing a good job. The one area you might feel unsatisfied with is his ability cooldowns, which can be overly long when you’re in the thick of it. To counter this, invest further into Static Charge to reduce its cooldown, followed by Lightning Ball to gain an extra charge so you can start slinging them into jungle camps and at enemy Troopers with abandon.
Seven early game powerspikes
Overall, Seven is already an incredibly powerful and well-rounded character, able to deal huge amounts of damage with his 3 ability, and farm Souls to unlock his ultimate as fast as possible and equip some of the best early game items to further boost his abilities. Speaking of…
Best Seven items for early game
Basic Magazine: Seven’s default magazine size can feel restrictive, with clutch moments being easily missed while you wait helplessly for him to finish his reload animation. To combat this, buy Basic Magazine for an instant quality-of-life improvement.
Extra Spirit: Another item you should grab as soon as possible for its boost to Spirit power and health (and to help make up for Valve halving Seven’s previous base health regen from 3 to 1.5).
Infuser: The passive effect grants a small but helpful boost to your Spirit Shield and ammo, while activating it gives you eight seconds of bonus Spirit Power and Lifesteal. Pop it right before ulting to greatly increase your survivability.
Enduring Spirit: To avoid maxing out your Spirit item slots before you gain access to flex slots or more expensive items, go for Enduring Spirit in the Vitality tab for the extra health.
Monster Rounds: Perfect if you want to speed up your Soul farming further, invest in Monster Rounds to help you annihilate Denizen camps and Troopers. This item is also useful for doing damage against Guardians and the more Spirit-resistant Walkers, but you can sell this item during the mid or late game if you want the extra weapons slot.
Best Seven mid game skills and what to max first
By mid game, Seven’s Lightning Ball and Power Surge can easily wipe the floor with most, if not all, jungle camps. Both abilities also do an excellent job of punishing enemies that bunch up together or spend too much time exposed. Even if your aim isn’t where you’d like it to be yet, these two abilities allow you to output a considerable amount of damage when comboed efficiently.
Maxing out Power Surge will reduce the skill’s cooldown, increase damage, and gain the ability for your charge to jump between even more foes. Concentrate on putting points into this ability first, followed by Lightning Ball.
While Seven’s shocking Storm Cloud ultimate can pack a punch to any nearby enemy within line-of-sight, it leaves him vulnerable to attack. Valve’s frequent fiddling with its radius, damage and effect suggests they aren’t happy with it yet either, which is why we recommended concentrating on upgrading his other abilities during the early game.
Mid game is a good time to level up Storm Cloud, if you are able, before the enemy has invested too heavily in abilities and items that can stun or interrupt your ultimate, which can lead to it being wasted (or worse, you getting ganked). Storm Cloud is best used when you already have a height advantage and not within the immediate view of busy enemy combatants.
With an Ability Point (AP) invested into Storm Cloud, you gain +35% Bullet Resist, making it safer for you to pop Storm Cloud when you need to clear an area or help an ally clinch a victory. Your Storm Cloud is great for punishing heroes who are out of place, trying to escape, or distracted by your teammates. And, of course, it’s excellent for farming lots and lots of Souls. The pulse of lightning following a kill will secure you any loose orbs floating nearby, leaving you free to concentrate on your positioning and DPS.
Otherwise, continue to punish opposing heroes who approach you by upgrading your Static Charge. At the third level (3 APs total), it gains an improved radius of +8m, making it much more effective for laning and defence. Watch your cooldown before engaging with enemy players, as this is an excellent ability to have on hand when cornered or when the enemy team bunches up.
Follow up by maxing out your Lightning Ball ability. While Seven isn’t the strongest against Walkers, you can still help your team battle them by throwing Lightning Balls down the lane, aiming for enemies and Troopers on the defensive. Avoid getting too close to objectives if you can see enough of your teammates are in the fray, as you will only increase the Walker’s resistance by doing so (by up to 40% if the whole team were to attack the same one together).
If you are losing too many encounters with enemy heroes, invest your next Ability Points into maxing out your Static Charge to improve your defense.
Regardless, continue to farm the plethora of jungle camps to rack up Souls for your team, allowing you to buy more powerful items.
Best Seven items for mid game
By now, you will have gained enough Souls to invest in a range of useful items. For this build we recommend the following:
Duration Extender: As well as doing what it says on the tin, Duration Extender also gives Seven extra health, health regen and weapon damage. If you weren’t able to get this item during the early game, grab it now. Duration Extender allows you to be more aggressive with your playstyle while also speeding up jungle farming.
Soul Shredder Bullets: Spend your next 1250 Souls on this powerful item, which amplifies Seven’s Spirit damage and gives you a +18 Spirit Lifesteal, allowing you to rip through your enemies easier while reducing the effectiveness of their attacks.
Tesla Bullets: Another item that works well with Seven’s kit (while also being very on-brand) is the Tesla Bullets item for 3000 Souls. In addition to granting you a +14 fire rate, this passive item gives you a passive version of Static Charge. This massively improves Seven’s farming capability, but isn’t particularly useful in the long run. So, take Tesla Bullets if you find your farming is falling behind, then switch it out for a damage-improving item like Spiritual Overflow in the late game.
Unstoppable: If you’ve made the most of Seven’s Soul farming (and your teammates are doing what they’re meant to be), you should be able to buy a level four item fairly early on. Unstoppable is a powerful item, and one that is especially useful for Seven. When activated, Unstoppable denies many of the counters the enemy may have for your ultimate, including Sleep, Stun, Silence, Disarm, Interrupt and Root effects. This removes one of the major vulnerabilities of Storm Cloud, increasing its versatility. Though Unstoppable, unfortunately, does not make you bulletproof, its passive effect gives a strong boost to health, Bullet Resist and Spirit Power, while reducing the effectiveness of any movement speed debuffs.
Mystic Slow: If you’re after excellent synergy, buy Mystic Slow for 3000 Souls. As well as improving your health, regen, Spirit Power and sprint speed, Mystic Slow greatly reduces an enemy’s speed and fire rate when taking Spirit Damage. Pair this with an upgraded Lightning Ball (or two) and it becomes a great tool for keeping your enemy right where you want them, especially if they are trying to run away.
Best Seven late game strategy
By now, you should be able to rip through any jungle camp with ease. If your team has pushed the enemy back far enough, you can farm the camps closest to their base, denying them Souls and maintaining your Soul advantage.
However, you are likely to have done enough farming by this point that you can prioritize putting pressure on the enemy team instead. Mystic Slow and Lightning Ball are the perfect combo for helping out in a team fight without getting too close to the danger.
By now your Storm Cloud should be maxed out too, allowing you to jump onto the enemy team while they’re distracted and fry them and all nearby Troopers. One team-wipe can be enough to win the game.
Storm Cloud isn’t just great for killing players, however. It can be particularly useful for area denial, whether attacking or defending. Pop it if your Patron is reduced to its Weakened Form to buy yourself some time, or pop it when you’ve got enough back-up to go after the enemy’s Patron to keep the opposing team out of the pit.
Remember that you can cancel your ult at any time – a Seven with a less effective ult is far more useful to your team during the end game than a Seven who over-extended and finds himself stuck in respawn.
Best Seven late game items
Diviner’s Kevlar: Use a flex slot or sell Infusor if you don’t have access to one. Diviner’s Kevlar is a huge boon to Seven, further increasing the duration of his abilities while providing him with a crucial 10% ability cooldown reduction. Ho’wever, where it really shines is its effect on a hero’s ultimate. During an ultimate, it provides a hefty 700 Bullet and Spirit Shield and +40 Spirit Power. All those enemies who thought they could stun or overwhelm you during your ult will have to think again once you have Unstoppable and Diviner’s Kevlar on hand.
Titanic Magazine: Upgrade your Basic Magazine to Titanic Magazine for +120% ammo and increased damage. This will allow you to keep pouring that damage into the enemy, with lightning jumping from victim to victim.
Boundless Spirit: If you haven’t already upgraded Extra Spirit to Improved Spirit, go straight for Boundless Spirit for bonus Spirit Power, Health, regen, weapon damage and speed. This all-around buff will help you stay in the fight (and out of respawn) for longer.
Spiritual Overflow: Trade out Monster Rounds for Spiritual Overflow if you don’t have a spare flex shot. Spiritual Overflow will reduce all ability cooldowns while improving Lifesteal and Bullet Shield health.
Mystic Reverb: If you’re out of flex slots and you still have Infuser, sell it to make way for Mystic Reverb. Mystic Reverb is another item that slow down your enemy. Imbue Lightning Ball or Power Surge with it to boost Lifesteal, Spirit resistance, and ability range, making any battle with you feel like time has slowed to a crawl for your enemies.
All these items combine to turn Seven into the ultimate farming machine, while also making him a powerhouse on the battlefield.
If you found this build gave the enemy a shockingly bad time, make sure to follow Deadlock Rank on BlueSky and Twitter, and stay on top of the meta by checking the main Seven page for the best Seven items by winrate.
