DeadlockExpert Tier List - Explanations for Every Hero

Abrams

Abrams is a safe choice to pick as the strongest hero in the current game. Abrams is a king of all trades hero, both offering as a strong frontliner as well as a efficient assassin and even as a scaling gun carry as well. He seems to be weak at no ends and is a perfect choice to fit any team and any playstyle.

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.

Viscous

As seen in Night Shift, Viscous has risen as one of the best gun carries in the current meta. While being a bit slow to come fully powerful, his innate defense with The Cube offers Viscous a fantastic save tool for himself as well as saving his teammates as well. Viscous also has good innate counterplay from Metal Skin as well because Puddle Punch pierces through as well as naturally scaling through out the game.

Lash

Lash feels very oppressive, his innate 10% Spirit Res and large HP Boon scaling coupled with his innate evasiveness with Grapple, and also coupled with his low need to farm makes him a great initiator that can turn fights with a well used Death Slam. Lash's high movement both makes him perfect for chasing down stragglers as well as evading ganks that can buy his team time and room to do other things on the map.

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.

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.

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 feels very similar to Gun Viscous but what Viscous has in safety, Warden has in damage. Warden has a much stronger gun so he has a much easier time to snowball in comparison but easily stopped by Curse or Metal Skin.

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.

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.

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.

Victor

With the new and reworked bases, games have been mostly extended, which leads to Victor being more capable of hitting his powerspikes and taking over the game. Any game that goes past 25 minutes, now runs the threat of a Victor being too powerful to kill.

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.

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 combo 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.

Vyper

Vyper, has paradoxically become more of a spirit assassin then a traditional gun carry. She is now much more viable with a strong spirit start into hybrid gun carry as Lethal Venom and Petrifying Bola. It helps to mitigate some of Vyper's weaknesses as a ground based character such as being able to evade much more consistently. While still seldom picked, Vyper is at least able to handle herself against mostly anyone 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.

Vindicta

Vindicta seems like a middling character as the current competitive build requires her to reserve her AP Points for a Assassinate rush build. While it has immense snowball potential, it often leads Vindicta to a less then stellar laning phase and Vindicta has a less then ideal way of snowballing as it requires some agency from her teammates to get players less then 50% HP

Mo & Krill

Mo And Krill once again returns as the always reliable and stable character. Being able to lock a person down with Combo and being a tanky frontliner will always have some value in games. Mo & Krill has no strong downsides and no strong upsides which is great as a baseline to compare other characters to.

McGinnis

McGinnis feels pretty solid right now. She is very overstatted currently to make up for her awkward and unique kit. With those stats, she is able to basically stat-check and surprise most players with Medicinal Specter and Healing Tempo.

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 Boundless Spirit, Mirage is by far the weakest M1 character in the game right now.

Wraith

This patch feels 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 Victor and better combative characters like Mina.

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.

Rem

As Rem has recently come out, this character is very subject to volatility as people figure how to figure out the hero. Rem, himself is quite difficult to play with very limited combat spells which is not very indicative of having strong winrates in games. Rem, seemingly has very limited agency in games, mostly relying on his teammates for him to empower which may be quite annoying when hero choices and skill can be very random. Expect him to require some time and mastery in order to fully utilize his sabotaur-esque playstyle.

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.

Grey Talon

Welcome back Grey Talon to the bottom of the tier list. While I'd hope that the Spirit Investment would help his Charged Shot, it feels very underwhelming compared to the rest of the cast. Not to mention Talon's natural fragility and the large nerf to stamina, it is not a surprise that Grey Talon feels very weak compared to everyone else.

Bebop

Poor Bebop, he has once again has gotten the nerf helmet and has once again been shoved into the D-Tier. The Vitality investment is by far the weakest compared to the other two, so Bebop now feels much less durable and has a very weak gun to boot. While Hook is still the same, Bebop now largely feels very dependent on his friends to capitalize off his hooks.

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.

Drifter

A surprising last entry here, but Drifter simply is way too one dimensional to truly have any real value.

Drifter wants many isolation kills, but players are never alone. With a difficult skillshot in Stalker's Mark in a high mobility meta and an even worse time in his limited attack range, this is truly the worst Drifter meta. Not only that, he is very outclassed by every other gun hero in Viscous and Warden