Mechanics

Pocket attacking enemies from above

An item build

“

I got enough of these for everyone!

— Bebop

Mechanics in Deadlock are the details, particulars, and mechanisms by which a player interacts with the game. This includes the objectives, controls, timing, map, and priorities to consider while playing in order to achieve victory.

Mechanics are generally broken into three categories:

Unit mechanics

The statistics, controls, and statuses of the units of Deadlock, including the player's Hero, the marching Troopers, and lane Structures.

Gameplay mechanics

The mechanics of interacting with the game, how the player gains   Souls, victory/defeat conditions, damage, healing, and death.

Map mechanics

The locations and entities of the game map and how they interact with players.

Overview

The overall objective of Deadlock is to destroy the enemy team's Patron. This is done over the course of the game, where two teams battle across three lanes, navigating the map using movement tools such as fans, ropes, and Ziplines. Each lane contains a Guardian and a Walker that a team will need to destroy to progress and destroy the Patron.

Teams battle AI controlled Troopers, that release Souls when killed. Souls are used to Level-up and buy items.

Gameplay Mechanics

Stats

Main article: Stats

Stats are the attributes that define a hero's strengths and weaknesses, and can be improved by leveling up and using abilities and items.

See Hero Comparison Table for a list of every hero's base stats and scaling.

Offense and Defense

Weapon Attacks

• Every Hero has a weapon that fires a ranged projectile that allows them to engage in ranged combat to deal damage to other Heroes and units.

Melee Attacks

Main article: Melee Attack

• Every Hero may also perform a melee attack (Default key: Q) to strike at point-blank range. Players can perform either a light or heavy melee attack. Light melee attacks are fast but deal low damage, heavy melee attacks take longer to charge, but have greater damage and range.

Parry

• Parries (Default key: F) are a defensive move available to every Hero, letting them block a melee hit from an enemy. On a successful parry, the enemy is stunned and takes 25% more damage from all sources for 2.75s. The parry goes on cooldown once it's used, but is instantly refunded on a successful parry against another Hero or a Guardian. Troopers can also be parried, but doing so does not refund the cooldown.

Crouch

• Crouching (Default key: Ctrl) can help avoid enemy fire by making the player smaller and able to hide behind objects.

Hero Abilities

• Every Hero has 4 unique abilities, which they can unlock for use by spending ability unlocks. Abilities provide tools for Heroes to enhance their playstyle in several different ways, such as dealing damage, empowering themselves or allied Heroes, weakening enemies, or assisting in traversal.

Movement

Main article: Movement

Double jump

• Heroes can perform a double jump by jumping (Default key: Space) while in mid air, which cost 1 Stamina. By default, Heroes can perform a single double jump in the air.

Dash and Air Dash

• Pressing the dash button (Default key: Shift) performs a quick evasive maneuver, which costs 1 Stamina. It can be used to evade enemy attacks, escape fights, or chase enemies.
• Pressing dash while in the air performs an air dash which works exactly like a regular dash, except it has less slowdown at the end of the dash. Without items, Heroes can perform a single air dash while in the air.
• Most Heroes have unique dash speeds, this can be viewed in their Vitality stats.

Dash Jump

• A Dash jump is a fast long jump, which can be performed during a dash and costs 1 Stamina, for a total of 2 including the Stamina spent dashing.
• The timing of a dash jump is visualized by the Stamina bar turning blue while dashing. While the Stamina bar is blue, the player can press jump to successfully dash jump.
• If players miss the timing of a dash jump by pressing Space too early or too late, the Hero will continue to dash and players will not be able to attempt the dash jump again until the initial dash is completed.

Slide

• Heroes can slide by holding crouch while moving faster than 9.6m/s (such as with high move/sprint speed, after dashes, etc) or while going down slopes, preserving momentum and giving infinite ammo for the duration of the slide. This can improve overall DPS by increasing the time before needing to reload when fighting around stairs or slopes, such as the ones seen in every lane next to the Guardian.

Down Dash

• Heroes can quickly dash downwards while in mid air by pressing the crouch button twice, spending 0.5 Stamina.

Wall Jump

• Heroes can perform a wall jump by jumping in mid air next to a wall while inputting the direction away from the wall. The first wall jump costs no Stamina, while subsequent wall jumps cost 0.5 Stamina.

Wall Slide

• Heroes can slide along walls while in the air, slowing their descent and limiting their max falling speed to -600 u/s.

Mantle

• Heroes can mantle, i.e. climb up obstacles. To mantle, the player must hold the forward key and look in the direction they wish to mantle in while jumping.

Mantle Glide

• Heroes can perform a mantle glide by holding the crouch button during a mantle. This will add a speed boost upon the mantle finishing.

General Strategy

Main article: Strategy

Laning

• Laning is the process of fighting in the lane, collecting Souls from Troopers, and pushing the lane to the enemy Patron.
• There are 3 lanes: York (Yellow), Broadway (Blue), and Park (Green; also referred to as Greenwich). Any part of a lane controlled by the opposing team will be red on the Minimap.
• The laning phase refers to the early game where players organize in lanes to gain strength (see: "Strategy").

Ganking

• Ganking is the act of moving from one lane to another to help kill vulnerable enemy Heroes.

Farming

• Farming is the process of focusing on gaining souls and buffs to increase your Hero's strength and buy more items. Farming typically consists of killing neutral camps and destroying breakables such as Crates, Golden Statues, and Sinner's Sacrifice machines.

Items

Main article: Items

• All Items give passive bonuses and some of them have an Active ability that Hero can use on command. Items can be purchased from the The Curiosity Shop for Souls.

Comeback Mechanics

Main article: Souls

When a team is behind on Souls, there are some mechanics that come into play to allow the losing team to catch up.

• Killing an enemy hero will award more souls if that hero is stronger than the killer team's average networth, regardless of which team is leading in souls.
• The losing team gains up to 26% more souls from Troopers, neutrals, Sinner's Sacrifices and Objectives, based on how behind they are (peaks at 20% max net worth difference). The first 3k in net worth difference is ignored.
• The Soul Urn will give additional souls to a team that is behind.

Pausing

Each player may pause the game once per match. Pausing is disabled for the first 2 minutes of a match. Each team is limited to three pauses per match, meaning that after three different players on the same team have used their pause, that team can no longer pause the game. This allows for a maximum of six pauses per match.

When a pause is called, all in-game action stops. The game timer, player movement, abilities, projectiles, and all other gameplay elements are frozen until game resumes.

The player who called the pause may end it at any time. Otherwise, the pause becomes available for anyone to end after 30 seconds. There is no maximum pause duration.

Players are able to move their camera while the game is paused. Any camera movement made during the pause is not retained and will reset to its original position when the game resumes.

Pausing is not allowed in Street Brawl.

Pre-Game phase

The pre-game phase lasts 30 seconds, during which players can ask to switch lanes with their team by clicking the colored button under another player's portrait in the top bar. In Ranked mode, players may also switch to a different unlocked hero, provided it has not already been selected by any player on either team. In Street Brawl, players have to pick their items and assign Ability Points during this phase.

Map Mechanics

Main article: The Cursed Apple

The map is where all of the fighting in Deadlock takes place. Known as "The Cursed Apple" and based on Midtown and Lower Manhattan in New York City, the map contains all of the unique features of Deadlock's gameplay.

Minimap

Main article: Minimap

The Minimap provides players with a view of the battle at large, providing live information regarding relevant match information.

• The Minimap provides specific information of the location of Camps, friendly and enemy Troopers, Shops, Buffs, and enemy Heroes (under certain conditions).
• The Minimap should be checked often to give players insight on the status of their own team, lane status, enemy positions, and camp locations.

Structures and Units

Unit/Structure	Image	Description
Troopers		Troopers are the main force of each Patron, sent down the map's Lanes to attack the opposing Patron. These small warriors will march in squads of 4 to attack all enemies nearby, including Guardians, Heroes, and the enemy Troopers. For much of the game, destroying Troopers (and their Soul orbs) is the primary way for players to gain more Souls. In addition, players may Deny enemy teams by stealing the Souls from killed troopers.
Guardian		The first objective of the lane is the Guardian, who has a laser attack, a melee attack, and a slam attack. The slam attack does AoE damage to enemies near the Guardian.
Walker		The second objective of the lane is the Walker who has a laser attack, a Volcano Salvo, and a slam. Your team will gain an Extra Slot per enemy Walker destroyed.
Base Guardians		The Third objective of the lane is two Guardians outside the enemy base. When both of these enemy Guardians fall in a lane, the zipline for allies in that lane becomes significantly faster.
Shrine		The fourth objective is the Shrines. They have no attacks. There are two shrines, one on each side of the base. They both need to be destroyed in order to weaken the Patron, allowing you to kill it and win the game.
Patron		The fifth and final objective is the Patron, which ends the game. It has two modes, normal and weakened. You can not damage a Patron in its normal state, it must be exposed by killing both Shrines in the base. Once the Patron has been brought to 50% HP, it will become invulnerable, transform and move into their team's Pit. If the weakened Patron is not currently under attack, it will passively regenerate its health. When the Patron moves into phase two, any Death Timers on the defending team will be shortened by up to 20s to a minimum of 10s, allowing for a final defense.
Neutral		Neutrals exist in the "Jungle" of the map. These Camps are located across the map and are denoted by cyan triangle icons. The number of lines beneath the icon indicates the difficulty of the camp: zero lines for easy camps, one line for medium camps, and two lines for hard camps. They are worth a small to medium amount of Souls if destroyed and respawn soon after.
Mid-Boss		The Mid-Boss is located in the center of the map and is a durable threat that typically requires multiple team members to co-ordinate and defeat. When the Mid-Boss dies, it drops the Rejuvenator. The Rejuvenator must be claimed by landing heavy melee attacks on it, it requires 3 hits to fully collect. Each successful hit immediately grants every member of your team a Rejuvenation Credit. If a hero dies while holding a Rejuvenation Credit, they will respawn at their death location and the credit is consumed. The credit does not affect deaths that happened before it was earned.

Interactive Objects

Object	Image	Description
Soul Urn		After 10 minutes of game time, the Soul Urn will appear and be ready for capture. The capturing hero will receive a few minor stat buffs, and several Soul Orbs will spawn from the deposit point. These Soul Orbs default to the capturer; however, they can be denied by opponents or confirmed by teammates to share the bounty. The Urn respawns every 5 minutes, and its spawn location is to the side of either bridge on green or yellow, and its capture location will be the opposite spawn (i.e., urn spawns on yellow, so its capture will be at green).
Unstable Rift		After 11 minutes of game time, Unstable Rift capture points will periodically appear on a side lane's bridge after 80 seconds. The winning team will receive Souls and Rift Troopers will spawn for that lane. After a minute of a tied contest, neutral Soul Orbs will spawn to be claimed by either team. Rifts spawn every 6-8 minutes.
Breakables		Breakables are found all around the map in the form of a crate or a golden statue. Break them for a minor but permanent power-up or a small amount of Souls.
Sinner's Sacrifice		Sinner's Sacrifice is a vending machine that provides Heroes with Souls in exchange for health if punched.
Ziplines		The Transit Lines (aka Hyperlines, or Ziplines) are the primary method of long-distance transportation in Deadlock. The Transit Lines are located throughout the Map, starting from each team's base, running down the three different lanes. Each team has their own Transit Lines system. The availability of the Transit Line depends on how far a team's Troopers has pushed down the lane.
Teleporter		2 pairs of Teleporters which can be used to quickly traverse the map horizontally .
Ropes		Ropes can be used to quickly ascend to midlevels or rooftops.

Temporary Buffs

Main article: Powerups

Temporary buffs spawn on the bridges overlooking the Soul Urn locations and begin at the 5 minute mark and then every 5 minutes thereafter. Each buff lasts for 160 seconds after being destroyed with a Heavy Melee Attack. The strength of each buff progressively increases from the 5 minute mark to the 40 minute mark.

There are four types of buffs:

1. Casting Buff: Grants temporary cooldown reduction and spirit power.
   • Starts at +15 Spirit Power and +12% Cooldown Reduction
   • Ends at +65 Spirit Power and +20% Cooldown Reduction
   • Duration: 160s
2. Gun Buff: Grants temporary magazine size and fire rate.
   • Starts at +12% Fire Rate and +35% Ammo
   • Ends at +35% Fire Rate and +70% Ammo
   • Duration: 160s
3. Movement Buff: Grants temporary extra stamina and sprint speed.
   • Starts at +2 Stamina, +1.5m/s Sprint Speed, +20% Stamina Regeneration Rate, and +40% Zipline Boost
   • Ends at +4 Stamina, +4m/s Sprint Speed, +50% Stamina Regeneration Rate, and +80% Zipline Boost
   • Duration: 160s
4. Survival Buff: Grants temporary health and health regen.
   • Starts at +200 Bonus Health and +4 Health Regen
   • Ends at +750 Bonus Health and +40 Health Regen
   • Duration: 160s