Valve’s latest hero shooter is populated with more than 30 Deadlock characters who bring something unique to the table.
While every character has their strengths and weaknesses, Deadlock heroes are much more versatile than standard MOBA archetypes. Rather than specializing solely in a specific role, every character is capable of dealing damage, pushing lanes, and jungling.
If you want to make the most of your favorite characters, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with each of the character’s unique Deadlock abilities and recommended loadouts.
All hidden Deadlock characters
- Kali (Experimental)
- Gunslinger (Experimental)
- The Boss (Experimental)
- Tokamak (Experimental)
- Rutger (Experimental)
- Thumper (Experimental)
- Cadence (Experimental)
- Bomber (Experimental)
- Shield Guy (Experimental)
The above heroes are currently mentioned in game files, and may, in time, make their way over to the main branch. Whether these additional Deadlock heroes will arrive ahead of the distant and full Deadlock release date or meet a grisly fate on the cutting room floor remains to be seen.
Best Deadlock characters
Each hero possesses unique powers, strategies, and gimmicks, and so it can be difficult to call any one hero “the best.” This topic becomes especially nuanced as a player’s overall experience and mastery of any one character can easily dominate the battlefield even outside of the hero’s assigned role.
However, there are definitely a few heroes who have a slight advantage over most of the roster in early, mid, or late-game, and there’s definitely a couple heroes with… less than great ultimates.
Best hero: Seven
Seven is an absolute powerhouse of a hero, dishing out damage with skill shots, damage over time effects, passive damage, and one massive AoE ultimate which doesn’t care for line of sight.
Even with minimal skill or experience, Seven can output more damage than most heroes in a one-on-one fight (I’ve found Wraith can out-compete Seven with the right buffs, but Seven easily outperforms overall in the early-game).
Critically, when engaging in group fights, Seven can create areas of denial with his Storm Cloud ultimate ability by hiding behind terrain while the rest of the team catches up to him.
For this and many more reasons, Seven is our best hero of Deadlock.
Worst hero: Viscous
Poor Viscous is a fish out of water in more ways than one. Viscous has a very high skill-ceiling in part due to Viscous’ ultimate ability: Goo Ball. For a limited time, Viscous becomes a giant ball of slime that bounces off of every surface it slams into. There’s just one major problem: the ball is very slow to accelerate, hard to turn, and almost useless in open areas.
Viscous does make up for this with his first ability Splatter which is great for lane pushing, but overall Viscous can find himself out of position very easily, and dead in the next second.
Additionally, while his The Cube ability can save a team member’s life, his own, or disrupt an opposing player, it’s also very easy to get the timing wrong and leave someone surrounded by the entire enemy team.
Fortunately, Viscous has already received several buffs (and nerfs, strangely) in follow-up patches that make him more usable. Nevertheless, he is, in my opinion, the weakest hero of the bunch unless you pour some serious practice into mastering him.
Deadlock character builds
Each hero has a ‘default’ recommended build which Valve provides in-game via the shop’s first window, but these are unlikely to top the Deadlock leaderboards.
So, to help you rise through the ranks, here are our best Deadlock builds to get you started with some of the best Deadlock heroes:
- Best Deadlock Abrams build
- Best Deadlock Bebop build
- Best Deadlock Infernus build
- Best Deadlock Warden build
- Best Deadlock Wraith build
Some characters benefit from increased health, regeneration, ammunition, or raw damage, while active abilities can be used as effective counters against a whole range of opposing heroes.
There are a ton of free Deadlock builds available publically, but we are also working on some of our own best builds to suit various playstyles and developments in each of your games.
Deadlock character priority
Going into any multiplayer gamemode requires you to select three heroes from the full roster of available characters.
Deadlock does not allow duplicate heroes to appear on the battlefield, meaning you’ll never see two of the same character in a single match.
As a result, Valve has introduced a priority selection to boost your chances of finding a game as one of your selected heroes.
Generally, the more popular heroes like Seven get picked a lot, so you might want to experiment with other characters in the full Deadlock roster rather than wait in a very long queue.
In order to assign priority, you will need to right-click a hero’s portrait:
- Purple = High priority
- Gold = Medium priority
- Nothing = Low priority
Deadlock will attempt to match you to a play session based on your priority.
For this reason, it is best that you familiarize yourself with at least three heroes via public or private bot matches (or in full multiplayer games if you’re feeling brave) before accessing the main Deadlock gamemodes.