Deadlock Expert Tier List - Explanations for Every Hero

Silver

One of the new characters added in the Old Gods update, Silver is by far the strongest character added to the game. She is very overloaded in terms in most of her kit, and while simple to play, Silver having access to her 2 different forms and separate sets leads to an overwhelming presence in the majority of games currently. Part of this is how every piece of her kit has something unusually powerful associated with it, such as how Slam Fire / Go For The Throat both has a current Health Damage and has a Missing Health Damage, or how Entangling Bola / Tail Whack disables all movement and can be chained to disarm as well. Lastly, and most powerfully is how Lycan Curse both gives a metric ton of flat health as well as some solid resistances and even an larger heal as well. It is no surprise that a well executed Silver can easily solo and carry even the most difficult games.

Celeste

Similarly to Silver, Celeste is very overloaded in her kit as well. The majority of her power is in her unique traits that allows her to basically access an unique form of movement as Celeste has lower gravity and much stronger air control. With enough experience, Celeste can influence the map in a way that no other character has access to, and with strong initiation spells like Light Eater and strong team fighting spells like Shining Wonder, Celeste seemingly has a lot of agency throughout the game.

Drifter

Drifter has risen through the ranks as he has gotten many direct and indirect buffs to his character. Most notably is the buff to Lifestrike, giving him a strong sustain with Rend throughout the game. As well as the buff to his Bloodscent as the isolation range has been increased, leading to easier kills and a easier time to snowball with his permanent damage. The meta itself favors Drifter as fights are super prevalent throughout the game and has a strong presence with Eternal Night.

Abrams

Abrams will forever be a safe choice as he offers many things that create a well rounded character. His ability to frontline as well as his frontloaded damage and crowd control, makes him an easy and consistent choice to any team.

Shiv

Not much as changed with Shiv, but as most characters now have more health due to the Vitality investment, Shiv can now easily execute healthier players with Killing Blow. On top of his natural tankiness with Bloodletting, this is also a great and natural meta for Shivs to snowball lobbies.

Mo & Krill

With how the Old Gods update has added many new and powerful and especially mobile heroes, Mo And Krill has become a high demand to lock down some of these pesky champions. Mo & Krill is one of the few characters that has a very easy time to take care of characters like Celeste and Apollo and does not even need other teammates to damage as items like Alchemical Fire and Scourge is enough for him to singlehandedly take care of them.

Mina

Mina feels overstatted currently, in many ways she is much better version of Infernus currently, being able to do much more damage with much less effort. With a built in Invulnerability with Sanguine Retreat and a better stamina recharge rate, similar to Lash she can escape dangerous situations with relative ease. With the new Vitality shop changes, she is the main winner as now she can build Vitality items with no downsides and survive surprise fights as well.

Rem

We have seen many Rem buffs throughout the last few weeks, and the last one has finally given him enough power to be a severe thorn in many games. While Rem lacks a certain agency as most of his abilities are indirect, with the new buffs to his Pillow Toss, Rem is now able to output as much damage as other spirit nukers like Paige. Naptime as well is a fantastic form of Crowd Control as well as doing a myriad of damage as well.

Lash

Lash once again is the premier combat brawler that allies love to see and what enemies dispise to see. Even the severe nerf to his Ground Strike, is seemingly no issue to his combat effectiveness. Lash can still do the same destructive things to ganks and large team fights alike, which is why Lash is seen in every game.

Paige

Paige seems like the premier Support hero currently. She offers the best thing a backliner can offer which is a buttload of damage through her kit. Since Paige does not have to worry about offensive power, her active items can easily fit to what utility her team requires the most. Weather that is Knockdown to combo with Captivating Read or Alchemical Fire to frontload even more damage or even Healing Nova to help sustain in fights, a Paige on your team is a great sight to see.

Warden

Warden now reigns supreme as the premier gun carry since Gun Viscous has been largely nerfed. Warden's offensive power with Last Stand and his gun is enough to brute force past any character, especially with items like Glass Cannon and Inhibitor.

Seven

With the new Ballistic Enchantment and the evolution of Gun Seven, Seven has rapidly risen in viability. Seven's gun has surprisingly done a healthy amount of damage which lets him become the best hybrid carry in the game, which immensely helps with threats like Metal Skin. The recent buffs to Lightning Ball leads to quick jungle clears and good wave clear as well.

Ivy

Ivy is very well rounded, but her hybrid support and spirit build has gained traction recently. With the recent buff to Watcher's Covenant, Healing Nova now has a great synergy which can easily save weak teammates as well as turn large teamfights. Making the area dangerous with Kudzu Bomb, Air Drop and Alchemical Fire is very difficult for the enemy team to ever engage with any team with an Ivy running this build.

Lady Geist

Solid, overall hero. Lady Geist largely benefits from the new Ballistic Enchantment and Recharging Rush, which gives a huge boon to her gun damage. Geist serves as an excellent bruiser, being only 2nd to Abrams, she only lacks good mobility options but has a great response to large CC's with Soul Exchange.

Holliday

Holliday has returned to form despite there being no changes to the character. Similar to Mina, the Vitality changes have greatly benefitted her, and spamming Powder Keg's ruins everyone's gameplan as Knock-ups are unaffected by Debuff Reduction whilst also doing big damage. Bounce Pad also being a charge spell also makes Holliday very evasive as well.

Graves

Graves has seen many recent nerfs in all aspects of her kit, from the Borrowed Decree damage being lowered as well as the Jar of Dead uptime being lower and damage nerf. But Grave's unique ability to both create a powerful sub objective and zone as well is something that has to be addressed is super powerful in many aspects. From being able to secure objectives or to simply shove out waves and create map pressure without Graves herself having to be there, leads to an oppressive atmosphere throughout the game.

Pocket

Pocket has largely felt untouched, but with the rise of Divine Barrier as well, Pockets have mostly have to work harder to maintain their previous impact. Expect multiple comboes with Enchanter's Satchel and Flying Cloak in order to get notable damage, while also being harder to quickly farm lone jungle camps.

Calico

Calico feels very good in the current meta. I believe most people are opting to max Ava in order to obtain mass Golden Statue buffs and to maintain a much stronger presence on the map. Calico struggles against the mass purchasing of Enduring Speed and Fleetfoot and has to also work harder to catchup to pesky carries like Infernus and Ivy.

Haze

I feel as Haze has become very volatile in a bad way, as she needs a strong start during lane while also feeling very weak as soon as she ever stops snowballing. Haze requires a large degree of mastery in order to maintain her power, and it feels too difficult in today's game to do that. A stray engage can easily spell a disaster for any Haze and she feels much worse to other assassinate characters like Calico.

Billy

Billy has suffered a notable nerf to his gun, with coupled with the rise of popularity of Stamina Mastery, he has a much more difficult time keeping people tethered and gets CC'd very easily now. Billy can still have a large impact if he can stay on top of players but it is much more difficult right now.

Yamato

Yamato feels very middling as she is outclassed by the better frontliners but still has a solid place if she is able to get a bunch of Crimson Slash's off. Still though Curse outright ruins her gameplan and theres not much recourse against it as well.

Bebop

Bebop is finally gotten some value with his new revamped buff to his 5AP Exploding Uppercut allowing Bebop to have a huge sustain in teamfights. With his renewed tankiness, Bebop can have a much easier time being able to get multiple bombs stacks in fight as well as being able to handle engages from the superior nukers like Celeste.

Paradox

Not much changed with Paradox, but is a solid initiator. Not much is to be said as Time Wall and Paradoxical Swap are consistent, reliable ways of finding picks and gaining a lead.

Grey Talon

Grey Talon has gotten a huge resurgence with the buffs to his Guided Owl, it now gives 10 permanent spirit instead of 5 and has given Grey Talon some much needed power. With his global presence and ability to now do much more powerful long range nukes and with new buffs to items like Mystic Reverb, Grey Talon can have much more impact in teamfights and help with cleaning up players that may have gotten away. Not to mention the 5AP Owl, has maintained its extremely powerful 22% instant Execute which can easily take down dangerous frontliners like Abrams and Mo And Krill.

Venator

Venator might have a bit of contention as his power level can be very volitile, but his flaws are much more apparent then the other new heroes. Venator's lack of health and speed is very noticable and Hex-Lined Snap Trap is very awkward to use. Venator's damage can also be highly mitigated with Metal Skin and Bullet Resilience as they affect all of his abilities including Consecrating Grenade, Gutshot and Ira Domini. With that in mind, while Venator's can have a surprise game with a Glass Cannon or a decent melee build with Melee Charge, he requires much more effort to do well with compared to other better rated characters.

Calico

Calico is a stable hero to pick currently, she has not gotten any changes, and so her effectiveness has largely remained the same. Unfortunately, even with her increased efficacy in the newly installed tunnels, most of the new roster have some ability to either kite her such as with Venator's Gutshot or are simply too aerial such as Apollo and Celeste for Calico to engage upon.

Victor

Victor is a huge loser in today's meta as he cannot handle the current power level of the new roster. Currently Victor feels very underwhelming as he cannot handle the large amount of damage being dealt, both in the nerfs to Dispel Magic as now Crowd Control abilties like Mo & Krill's Combo or from Rem's Naptime and being unable to stand on even more conventional high movement characters like Holliday or Pocket.

Apollo

Apollo has gotten some recent nerfs to his Flawless Advance and to Itani Lo Sahn, both lowering the raw damage and has made Apollo very weak outside of early game. Since Apollo's damage is mostly spirit, even a simple Spirit Resilience or Counterspell can easily mitigate everything Apollo has to offer. In many ways, Apollo feels like a much weaker version of Yamato as his damage is much more easily mitigated, much more nuanced and less agile. And in Deadlock's current meta, simply having a strong laning presence is not enough to win games as the most important objective begin from as late as 15 minutes such as the 2nd Soul Urn or the Mid-Boss.

Mirage

Similar to Yamato, a lot of Mirage's power seem to be abusing his Djinn's Mark as well. If Mirage cannot obtain strong stacks with Mark, he seems to be very underwhelming in fights as well. Not to mention his very slow farming rate and large reliance on items like Ricochet and Inhibitor, Mirage is one of the weakest gun carry character in the game right now.

Kelvin

Kelvin seems to have fallen to be a Frozen Shelter bot, as he also seems to be a bit undertuned to deal with the current meta as well. While he can excel as a strong support, Kelvin seems to get outscaled relatively quickly when theres too many players in the Shelter as well.

Sinclair

While I think a strong Sinclair can easily have large impact in the lobby, players have done better to focus him and his awkwardness requires excellent mastery of the character in order to manage landing Vexing Bolt and Audience Participation. Simply speaking I feel he is too difficult to play effectively and not worth the time in order to gain the same amount of value as someone else.

Dynamo

Similar to Kelvin, Dynamo has fallen to be mostly a Kinetic Pulse spammer. While very effective, it feels very lacking once he runs out of Pulses to spam and with the high mobility meta going currently it is much more difficult to land Singularity.

Viscous

Viscous has largely fallen out of favor ever since his infamous nerf to his gun and to his The Cube While his Puddle Punch focused build is still viable, simply being a nuisance is not enough to justify how weak Viscous currently feels. Viscous has now returned to being a specialist only hero, since the majority of his damage has gone back to the Goo Ball and is simply too difficult to play for most players.

Wraith

The trend continues as Wraith's weakest as she seems a bit underpowered to manage the current character she ideally wants to duel against. With the meta being very brawly as well, its a bit uncomfortable to have the Wraith excel in mass teamfights as well. Even with longer gametimes, she lacks compared to better scaling characters like Warden and better combative characters like Mina. Split-pushers in general feel the weakest they have ever been as Walkers past the first are much too difficult to destroy and offer very little value.

Vindicta

Vindicta feels very difficult to play as the recent change to her Assassinate now giving weapon damage instead of gold has basically forced all of Vindicta's playstyles to feel very weak. With no real way to gain gold to scale and low farming power in general, Vindicta feels very limited in options and ideas currently.

Vyper

Vyper has returned to being bottom of the pack as the new roster has made her largely irrevelent again. Vyper's grounded playstyle has no room in the current state of deadlock and has mostly made her very impossible to survive any engagement. With Vyper's lack of survivability, damage and mobility it is simply too difficult to play.

McGinnis

McGinnis simply has no place as her lack of mobility and lack of value in splitting as returned her back to form as being one of the worst in the current game. With the new introduction of heroes, mostly consisting of high evasive and large spirit nukers, they obliterate McGinnis with ease as they are able to easily kite out her mobility and McGinnis being unable to consistently return fire properly with how evasive heroes like Celeste can be. McGinnis also has zero place in large brawl metas where she can be easily displaced by heroes like Lash's Death Slam or Abram's Shoulder Charge moving her out of secure places with Medicinal Specter, she is in contention for being the worst along with Doorman.

Doorman

The Doorman seems to also struggle against the high mobility meta as it is quite difficult to combo players that evade his very limited range. Even with a Knockdown, its very difficult for him to survive dangerous fights and Doorman requires many AP Points to really have some power in order for his combos. The recent nerf to Doorman's Doorway disallowing him to transport the urn has removed what is left of Doorman's agency and has made the Doorman simply too difficult to truly play currently.

Infernus

With the latest Infernus afterburn nerf, it now requires 9 in-range hits to apply Afterburn, double-dipped with another nerf to having a much weaker refresh rate, the traditional Infernus build seems to be at its weakest. With a low HP Pool and an even lower gun rate, it is truly a rough time for all Infernus players to really do anything currently.