DeadlockExpert Tier List - Explanations for Every Hero

Kelvin

Kelvin is the clear winner of this patch. He offers so much utility from Frost Grenade and Frozen Shelter alone. On top of the new urn changes as well, Ice Path is now one of the best ways to quickly deliver the urn and force great fights at the urn and the mid-boss alone. Kelvin is also capable of going any flexible build such as Gun, Spirit or Support.

Abrams

Abrams is currently the strongest hero in the game. Abrams has a swiss army knife of traits that allows him to exemplify his power within the meta. He is a durable, strong pick potential, mobile frontliner that any team would love to have.

Shiv

• Shiv, while getting a very minor buff of 10 damage on Slice and Dice, he seems to have exceled in the current meta due to his strong synergy with Reactive Barrier and his rage being solved with Decay as well. Since his main issues of durability and rage generation is being solved, he can easily turn fights with just Killing Blow alone.

Paradox

• Paradox has being seen a large resurgence in the current meta. She has only gotten a seemingly minor buff to her gun scaling damage, but it is enough to push her back into being a menace in every game she plays. Most players have been opting out to go a more gun-based build instead of her utility one with Pulse Grenade. Paradox's gun build has been very powerful since Kinetic Carbine scales naturally with Paradox's gun and Time Wall requires no further scaling outside of its 2AP upgrade giving it a whopping 10% Max Health Damage nuke.
• This patch has also further increased Paradox's gun damage with the recent Quality of Life change where items such as Weakening Headshot and Headhunter now properly apply in the right sequence in order to give Paradox the maximum amount of damage as well.

Calico

• A new introduction to the S-Tier, Calico is the main winner of this patch. With the changes to stamina and wall-jumping in particular, Calico can now more easily get on top of people and do her immediate combo with Arctic Blast and Gloom Bombs. Her natural mobility and evasion from Return to Shadows and Leaping Slash help immensely with keeping her alive as well.

Victor

• Victor has gotten a massive rework in the last couple of patches. With this recent one, he has now become extremely powerful. The last patch has given Victor much more freedom in his item builds leading to an immense power boost. Victor also has one of the best scalings in the game, leading to an easy victory once games go late. Blood Tribute is an excellent pairing for him, which gives him a much more easier time maneuvering around fights as well.

Infernus

• Infernus has now become the new premier carry due to new innovations to his item builds. With his innate -25% spirit damage talent on 1AP Afterburn, he can easily match other carries such as Ivy or Wraith. He also does not suffer as badly from Debuff Remover, due to his new build utilizing on-hits such as Tesla Bullets and Mercurial Magnum.

Mina

• Mina is the premier mage in the current meta. She offers the most damage in the game and has the easiest time of snowballing games. Her main weakness is her fragility, so once Mina has points in Sanguine Retreat with some Reactive Barrier or Spirit Shielding, games feel much easier to survive into.

Grey Talon

• Grey Talon has seen a large resurgence in play and in the meta. There is a much more of a demand of safe, consistent damage due to the strong resurgence in Barriers and the fall of the strong resistance items like Spirit Resilience. With some good communication, Guided Owl becomes a global and very lethal threat throughout the game.

Wraith

• Wraith is the premier user of Blood Tribute with its new buffs, greatly utilizing all of its stats especially the fire rate. With the recent patch, her Card Trick also got a very strong buff as well. Wraith immediately offers the highest damage out of all the traditional Gun Carries, which can be used to quickly take out objectives like Walkers and Mid-Boss.

Bebop

• Likewise, Bebop is also a fantastic user of Blood Tribute due to his natural high HP pool, which lets him use the item for a very long time. Never underestimate the power of Hook as well, with Bebop's innate damage talents, even a full tank Bebop is able to dish out tons of damage from Sticky Bomb and Hyper Beam

Pocket

• Similar to Mina, Pocket is in a very good place due to their similar playstyles and strengths. Pocket offers great damage from a minimal use of items and once Pocket's defensive items are established such as Majestic Leap and Reactive Barrier, they can likewise snowball games with relative ease.

Viscous

• Viscous has been seeing some good usage due to his new item build allowing for one of the strongest burst combos ever seen in Deadlock currently. With Express Shot and Mystic Shot on top of Splatter and Puddle Punch, Viscous has turned into an assassin with his usual movement and ball shenanigans. The Goo Ball itself has seen some really limited use, however.

Ivy

• Not much changed about Ivy, outside of her very seemingly minor nerfs. Still a very solid character, Ivy is still just as capable of doing anything she was doing before. Spirit Ivy might see a resurgence soon, due to the newly buffed Mystic Slow.

Doorman

• Doorman is a very staple pick currently, Gun Doorman in particular has seen a lot of popularity as well. With items like Lucky Shot and Crippling Headshot, Doorman does a crazy amount of gun burst that people aren't accustomed to.

Paige

• Paige got a bunch of strong buffs in this recent patch. With the recent quality of life change from Conjure Dragon, it is much easier to land and Paige has gotten a strong boost to her power as a result.

Lady Geist

• Lady Geist is simply a very solid character. She serves as an very excellent front liner and with the recent systemic changes to CC, she is much more capable of surviving sudden engages. Lady Geist has a very decent laning presence as well.

Mirage

• Mirage is a very solid character, a strong user of Spiritual Overflow, but he has issues sustaining in long fights and lacks the durability and damage that other characters are capable of. As well as his very weak farming power, Mirage really requires a good early start in order to maintain the power necessary to exist in the current landscape.

Billy

• Billy is in a solid state as well, he currently also lacks the durability to handle very long team fights, similar to Mirage. But what Mirage makes up for in range, Billy makes up in CC. With the recent changes to CC Chaining, Billy takes a significant hit, but any stun can be a good stun in the right place and in the right time.

Holliday

• Holliday is in a very awkward spot, she both suffers from the CC changes from Spirit Lasso and Powder Keg, and requires a good amount of mastery in order to maneuver around dangerous fights. With the recent power gains to items like Blood Tribute and Reactive Barrier, lasso just does not offer enough power to find consistent picks. But as always, a good Holliday can offer large amounts of damage and utility to their team.

Haze

• Haze seems to be a very volatile hero in the current landscape, which makes it very difficult to address her current power. Haze has a very solid lane, but has very low health. Haze is capable of fast ganks and strong CC, but Blood Tribute and Reactive Barrier easily shut her down. Haze is also a very weak scaler throughout the game, which can lead to uncomfortable situations during the late game as well.

Lash

• Lash is the biggest loser of this patch, suffering from all aspects of this current patch. With the nerfs to Quicksilver Reload and his Ground Strike as well as the nerfs to the CC changes and Reactive Barrier, this patch is dedicated to the downfall of Lash. But despite all this, Lash is easily capable of turning fights from smart usage of Death Slam and Ground Strike.

Sinclair

• Sinclair has been seeing a large fall-off of use and playability. With how the meta is leaning towards more evasive, aerial heroes, Sinclair has a harder time landing Rabbit Hex and Vexing Bolt. With enough practice, an experienced Sinclair is still able to make game changing plays with Audience Participation and land a few Vexing Bolts in order to deter any enemies coming at him.

Mo & Krill

• Mo And Krill serves as a good foil to the rest of the cast, since the main draw of his is to cast Combo. Characters that buy Blood Tribute and Reactive Barrier can easily handle Sand Blast and Combo.

Vindicta

• Vindicta has gotten a really significant nerf to her Stake. With that change alone, her main utility in fights has gotten much weaker and her current meta build has gotten much worse. With this explosive change in playstyle alone, people are still figuring out what the best way to now utilize this new and weaker Vindicta.

Yamato

• Yamato has seen much better days, she seems to lack the damage both in lane and in fights due to the mass usage of Spirit Shielding and Silence Wave. Gun Yamato might have some future significance, but it requires many souls and time and Yamato is not known to be a very fast farmer.

Warden

• Warden has gotten some significant nerfs to Last Stand, which has drastically hurt his ability to impact the Mid Game, and with the nerfs to his early gun damage, Warden has a much tougher time getting off the floor as well. With everyone else around him getting buffed, Warden is left in the dust for now.

Drifter

• Drifter seems to have no place in the meta at all. Duo lanes do not offer him any bonuses to his Isolation benefits, his weapon is very awkward and weak and landing Stalker's Mark is difficult and awkward. The best use-case for Drifter is to simply cast Eternal Night for utility.

Seven

• People have started to wisen up to Seven's gimmicks and currently he seems to not have the health or utility to exist in this meta. With Knockdown's currently disrupting Storm Cloud and players being smarter to mitigate Static Charge with items like Counterspell and Blood Tribute, Seven's have having a much harder time in this patch.

McGinnis

• Similar to Vyper, McGinnis is a very polarizing character and offers very binary utility with very awkward success. With her slow mobility and awkward conditions, this meta simply does not favor her at all. Outside of needing a bunch of souls, McGinnis utilizes it very poorly and does not offer a strong gun or strong spells and her utility is very difficult to capitalize off of.

Vyper

• Vyper serves as the most polarizing and one-dimensional hero Deadlock has to offer. Her lack of range severely limits her usage, the strong use of Knock-ups from Holliday's Powder Keg or Lash's Ground Strike hurts her mobility quite a bit as well. Vyper also requires a strong source of souls in order to scale throughout the game, simply said, Vyper struggles immensely in the current meta.
• Even with Vyper's new reworked Screwjab Dagger, she still suffers from even a simple CC and not much has changed with her to even consider her remotely viable.

Dynamo

• Dynamo is still mostly the same, mostly serving as a Kinetic Pulse robot. Most of Dynamo's power budget is spent on Singularity, which is too slow and too difficult to land in the current meta.