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DeadlockDeadlock Kelvin Guide and Overview

In this Deadlock Kelvin guide, you’ll learn the fundamentals of his abilities, unique play styles, and fundamental tips.

Kelvin's hero tags are: Protector, Explorer, Ice Cold

Voice Actor: Unknown

Deadlock Kelvin Overview

Kelvin is a beginner-friendly hero who can adapt to a wide range of playstyles.

Want to be a tanky frontliner? Prefer to be more supportive with heals? Split push and apply pressure across the map? He’s your guy.

Lore

A famed adventuring scientist, Kelvin made it his life's mission to explore and understand the unknowable. So naturally when rumors surfaced regarding an 8th astral gate hidden in the arctic, Kelvin couldn't build an expedition team fast enough. Assembling the brightest minds of his generation, Kelvin and his team set forth with much fanfare.

They never returned.

A year and a half later the frozen body of Kelvin was found by a fishing trawler, his corpse clutching a rock etched with glowing runes. The crew chipped away at the ice, looking to get a closer look at the body and were shocked when Kelvin opened his eyes. They checked his vitals... there was no pulse. They sought to bandage his open wounds... there was no blood. And yet, impossibly, Kelvin was "alive".

Having no memory of what happened on the expedition, Kelvin is looking for answers.

Strengths and Weaknesses Summary

Easy access to heals with Frost Grenade and Frozen Shelter
Can slow enemies and freeze enemy stamina
Good mobility
Great at controlling and denying space

Vulnerable to poke
Slow rate of fire
Anti-heal negates his healing

Deadlock Kelvin Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

Hard to kill due to healing and debuffs.
Highly mobile with fast-rotation potential.
His abilities make him great at controlling enclosed spaces.

Weaknesses

Can get poked from afar due to operating at close-mid range.
Slow rate of fire compared to other primary guns.
Anti-healing items like Toxic Bullets, Healbane, and Decay.

Deadlock Kelvin Abilities

Underlined = Scales with Spirit

Frost Grenade (1)
Throw a grenade that explodes in a cloud of freezing ice, damaging and slowing enemies.
2 Charges	7s Cooldown Between Charges	30s Cooldown
4s Slow Duration	60 Damage	-40% Movement Slow

Frost Grenade (1)

Frost Grenade

Throw a grenade that explodes in a cloud of freezing ice, damaging and slowing enemies.

2 Charges

7s Cooldown Between Charges

30s Cooldown

4s Slow Duration

60 Damage

-40% Movement Slow

Frost Grenade Upgrades
1 AP	2 AP	5 AP
Increases damage and heal by +30	Freezes stamina regen and -10s Cooldown	Increases damage and heal spirit scaling by 1.0 and Radius by +2m

Maxing Frost Grenade lets you spam more grenades due to the increased charge, lets you provide AoE heals to yourself and team, and bumps up its overall damage.

Tips for Frost Grenade

Mystic Expansion and Greater Expansion extend the radius of Frost Grenade.
In team fights, try to find the sweet spot where you can throw the Frost Grenade down at your legs to hit yourself, allies, and enemies.

Ice Path (2)
Kelvin creates a floating trail of ice and snow that gives movement bonuses to him and his allies. Kelvin gains 60% slow resistance for the duration. Enemies can also walk on the floating trail. Press [LEFT SHIFT] / [LEFT CTRL] to travel up or down while in Ice Path.
8s Duration	18s Duration	50s Cooldown
+2m/s Move Speed	+2m/s Sprint Speed

Ice Path (2)

Ice Path

Kelvin creates a floating trail of ice and snow that gives movement bonuses to him and his allies. Kelvin gains 60% slow resistance for the duration. Enemies can also walk on the floating trail.
Press [LEFT SHIFT] / [LEFT CTRL] to travel up or down while in Ice Path.

8s Duration

18s Duration

50s Cooldown

+2m/s Move Speed

+2m/s Sprint Speed

Ice Path Upgrades
1 AP	2 AP	5 AP
+2 Move Speed and +35% Bullet Resistance on Ice Path	-25s Cooldown	While active, gain +1 Spirit Power per meter of Ice Path trail created. Max of 90 Spirit Power

Maxing Ice Path allows you to be insanely mobile due to increased sprint speed, lower CD, and you’ll even get bonus Spirit Power as you create paths. This is your choice if you want to gank often, farm neutrals, and split push.

Tips for Ice Path

You can make instant high ground on command, so look to create advantageous angles when engaging.
It’s also a great way to catch a Vindicta or Grey Talon since they have slow movement speed while floating

Arctic Beam (3)
Shoot freezing cold energy out in front of you, damaging targets and building up movement and fire rate slow against them the longer you sustain the beam on them. You have reduced movement speed while using Arctic Beam.
5s Channeling Time	25m Beam Length	28s Cooldown
45 DPS	20% Max Slow, 20% Max Fire Rate Slow	2s Slow Linger
2s Max Slow Build Time

Arctic Beam Upgrades
1 AP	2 AP	5 AP
Increases Move Slow and Fire Rate Reduction by -25%	+20 DPS and +0.6 Spirit Scaling	Fires 2 Additional Arctic Beams toward enemies within 10m of the last target hit, reduces Cooldown by 13s

Maxing Arctic Beam makes you an absolute menace in team fights you can extend the beam to bounce to 2 additional targets.

This alone can win extended teamfights as you’ll reduce the firing rate of all enemies hit with the beam.

Tips for Arctic Beam

Using Ice Path negates Arctic Beam's self slow, and makes for a great chasing combo.
Track enemy build paths by pressing Tab and hovering their name. Identify the ones that are building toward Weapon (left-click) builds and look to prioritize them over enemies that are focusing on Spirit (ability) builds as they won’t be as hindered by your beam.

Frozen Shelter (4)
Kelvin freezes the air around him, creating an impenetrable dome around himself. While in the dome, allies rapidly regenerate health and enemies are slowed.
10m Radius	5s Duration	185s Cooldown
+90 Health Regen	-35% Movement Slow

Frozen Shelter (4)

Frozen Shelter

Kelvin freezes the air around him, creating an impenetrable dome around himself. While in the dome, allies rapidly regenerate health and enemies are slowed.

10m Radius

5s Duration

185s Cooldown

+90 Health Regen

-35% Movement Slow

Frozen Shelter Upgrades
1 AP	2 AP	5 AP
-25s Cooldown	+1.5s Duration	+65 Health Regen and now scales with Spirit Power

Maxing Frozen Shelter increases its Fire Rate Slow, significantly lowers its CD, and makes you even tankier while within the dome with boosted Health Regen. Essentially, it’s the tanky frontliner build.

Tips for Frozen Shelter

Frozen Shelter can be clutch in offensive or defensive situations. On offense, look to wombo-combo with Haze or Seven who have incredibly strong AoE ults.
Similarly on defense, you can put a Frozen Shelter around enemies channeling AoE abilities to prevent them from hitting anyone else but you (you’ll usually survive with your increased tankiness).
A fully upgraded Frozen Shelter removes non-ultimate debuffs from yourself and allies, and provides high instant regeneration, making it possible to save yourself and enemies from enemy engages.

Kelvin Build Guide

Check out the best starter build for Kelvin

Hero Overview

Weapon Stats

DPS	8372
Bullet Damage	17.8
Ammo	14
Bullets per Second	3.81
Light Melee	63
Heavy Melee	116

Vitality Stats

Max Health	800
Health Regen	1
Bullet Resist	0%
Spirit Resist	0%
Move Speed	6.81 m/s
Sprint Speed	1.5 m/s
Stamina	3

How to Counter Kelvin

Kelvin can be difficult to fight one-on-one. He is best taken down alongside an ally.
If Kelvin is on top of you it's already too late. Try to keep your distance unless you have an advantage.
His Grenade has a 20s base CD and his Beam has a CD of 16s after rank 1. If these are down, you have a decent window to kill him, especially pre-ult.
Healing Reduction helps keep his tankiness in check.