ParadoxGive feedback

Paradox is a Hero in Deadlock. She wields time manipulation with potent disruption and slowing abilities. With a charged Kinetic Carbine, she can threaten her enemies at any range while damaging and slowing them with thrown Pulse Grenades and well-placed Time Walls. At just the right moment, Paradox can activate her Paradoxical Swap to change places with her target, dropping them into a dangerous situation amongst her team.

Calculated

Disruptor

Tactician

Weapon Stats
Damage Per Second:	51.4
Bullet Damage:	6.8+0.26
Bullets Per Burst:	5
Ammo:	40
Bullets per sec:	7.56
Reload Time:	2.59s
Bullet Velocity:	525m/s
Light Melee:	50+1.58
Heavy Melee:	116+3.67

Information

Pronouns:	She/Her
Voice Actor:	Elle Newlands^[1]
Release Date:	April 24, 2024
Internal names:	Chrono

“

They'll fight on my terms.

Paradox is both the name of this Hero and the name of their Thieves' Guild, specializing in stealing the untouchable and breaking into ultra-secure facilities. Their motives are unclear, except for a certain level of delight that its members seem to take in snubbing the world's biggest corporations and governments.

Weapon

Trade Secret

Burst Fire

Medium Range

51 Damage Per Second

Falloff Range

20m ➞ 58m

Abilities

Pulse Grenade

Throw a grenade that begins pulsing when it lands. Each pulse expands the radius and applies spirit damage, time slow, and stacking increased damage for Paradox against the victim.

x0.3

35

Pulse Damage

4%

Bonus Damage per Stack

1m Radius Per Pulse

0.8s Pulse Interval

8s Debuff Duration

20% Move Speed

0.2s Slow Duration

1

-12s Cooldown

2

+20 Pulse Damage and increased Spirit scaling

5

+4% Damage Amp and +1.6s Duration

Debuff duration reduced by Debuff Resist Effect can be dispelled CC effect suppressed by Unstoppable

Deals 50% damage to objectives.
Time slow means Movement Slow. Dashes are not affected.
Since grenade radius increases by each pulse, increasing its duration with items such as Duration Extender also increases its maximum radius.
There is no max stacks limit. Casting grenade twice with Echo Shard allows double stacking.

Time Wall

Create a time warping wall that stops time for all enemy projectiles and bullets that touch it and increases the speed and damage of friendly bullets.

Enemies that touch the wall will be briefly slowed and silenced .

80%

Movement Slow

0.5s

Time Stop Duration

30%

Ally Weapon Damage

8m Wall Width

4m Wall Height

2x Ally Bullet Speed

1

+3.5s Duration
+3m Width
+1m Height

2

2.3s Silence Duration
+35% Weapon Damage

5

+2 Ability Charges

Debuff duration reduced by Debuff Resist

Triggers Reactive Barrier Effect can be dispelled Disable prevented by Indomitable CC effect suppressed by Unstoppable

The move slow for enemies passing through lasts 2s.
Projectiles from abilities and items are affected. Ally abilities that deal weapon damage get the bonus damage.
A projectile cannot be affected by more than one wall. This means that stacking several walls (from T3) does not give extra damage.

Kinetic Carbine

Charge up a powerful shot of time energy, dealing spirit damage and applying a Time-Stop to enemies hit. The damage dealt increases with weapon damage. Move speed is increased while charging.

While in the air and charging, Zoom / alt-fire to timeslow your movement.

x2.25

76.5

Max Damage

0.4s

Max Time-Stop

x0.13

25%

Bonus Speed

42.5 Min Damage

x1.25

3.5s Charge Hold Duration

14% Headshot Damage

1

0.4s Max Time-Stop

2

-12s Cooldown
Increases Speed Scaling

5

+2s Charge Hold Duration and +55% Damage Scaling

Debuff duration reduced by Debuff Resist Effect can be dispelled Casting does not break stealth from Veil Walker or Shadow Weave CC effect suppressed by Unstoppable

The charge-up happens over 2.5s.
Like the damage, the duration of Time-Stop for the target also scales with charge time, with minimum being 0.25s.
Carbine's damage scaling is based on Weapon Damage of a full burst shot (5 * bullet damage = 34).
Casting Kinetic Carbine does not break stealth. Shooting Carbine's shot does break it.
Despite saying "Move Speed is increased while charging", the bonus is only given after Carbine is fully charged.
Move Speed bonus is a unique buff that applies a multiplicative modifier to all of Paradox's animations. This has several consequences:
- It works as a flat multiplicative modifier on top of all other move speed buffs and debuffs and is not part of common stacking algorithm.
- Jump height also gets boost, both for ground and air jumps.
- Dash distance seems to be unaffected.
- Reload animation gets completed quicker, but it is only a visual/audial indicator and the actual reload time is unaffected.
Carbine shot is immune to Bullet Evasion.
Carbine has complicated interactions with many items, see more in Kinetic Carbine Interactions.

Paradoxical Swap

Fire a projectile that swaps your position with the target enemy hero.

x1.1

150

Swap Damage

1

200 Barrier for 8s. Barrier scales with Spirit

2

-30s Cooldown and +13m Cast Range

5

Swaps all enemies within 7m of hit target and +10% Max Health Damage

Triggers Reactive Barrier Disable prevented by Indomitable CC effect suppressed by Unstoppable

Paradoxical Swap does not interrupt channeled casts like Dynamo's Singularity.
Once connected, the swap cannot be interrupted and can go through walls.
The position switch lasts ~1.25s. Neither Paradox nor her target(s) are able to perform any actions during this time.
Both Paradox and her target(s) are vulnerable to damage during the swap.
Swap damage is applied after the swap ends. T1 barrier is activated when the swap begins.
The T3 upgrade also unlocks an Alternate Cast that lets the player swap a single target.
Paradoxical Swap will trigger Indomitable and Cloak of Opportunity, cleansing the effect, so neither Paradox nor the target will move.
- The projectile continues even if it gets cleansed and will still swap when it hits another enemy along its path.
- On T3, if the projectile hits a target that cleanses Paradoxical Swap but another enemy is within the swap area of effect, the following happens:
  - The original target of Paradoxical Swap doesn't move.
  - Any other nearby targets affected by the swap area of effect will be swapped.
  - Paradox will move to the original target's position.

Kinetic Carbine Item Interactions

Due to unique nature of the ability (charging a weapon damage into a single shot of spirit damage) Kinetic Carbine has many unique interactions.

Weapon/Spirit Items

Weapon Damage items provide their bonus to Carbine.

Conditional Weapon Damage items apply their bonuses to Carbine if the condition is satisfied at the moment of the shot. For example, having Point Blank will make Carbine use its damage bonus if the shot target is in close range.

Spirit Power items do not affect Carbine in anyway since it scales only off weapon damage.

Resist Reduction Items

Bullet resist reduction items do not affect Carbine's damage.

Spirit resist reduction items affect Carbine's damage.

On-shot Items

Items that apply their effects with Kinetic Carbine:
- Restorative Shot.
- Mystic Shot.
- Weakening Headshot and Crippling Headshot.
- Hollow Point's bullet resist debuff.
Items that do not apply their effects with Kinetic Carbine:
- Headshot Booster and Headhunter.
- Spirit Shredder Bullets and Spirit Rend.
- Point Blank slow.
- Tesla Bullets and Capacitor.
- Armor Piercing Rounds' pierce.
- Lucky Shot's extra damage.
- Ricochet's ricochet.
- Siphon Bullets' health steal.
- Buildup items like Toxic Bullets.
Split Shot allows Paradox to fire 5 Carbine shots at once. However, it will only affect the first enemy hit.
Express Shot gives the smaller "Secondary Fire Weapon Damage" bonus to Carbine shot and immediately shoots a regular bullet with the bigger "Weapon Damage" bonus.

On-spirit-damage items

Any items that trigger on spirit damage work with Carbine. For example, a single shot of carbine can trigger Tankbuster, Spirit Burn and Mystic Slow.

Other interactions

Kinetic Carbine applies a unique multiplicative modifier for its move speed bonus that has several interactions with items that move the player

Majestic Leap performs the leap quicker.
Magic Carpet gets increase to its flying speed.
Ethereal Shift gets increase to its "floating" speed.

Since casting Carbine does not break stealth it creates a unique interaction with items that give Stealth:

Backstory

See Paradox/Lore for more story content.

“

Paradox. An artifact of time, and the name of a notorious thieves' guild... one that prides themselves on constructing elaborate heists that target the most untouchable of individuals and institutions. What does Paradox do with the countless artifacts, state secrets, and celebrity paternity tests that they have stolen? Put it on display at pop-up museums, so that they can show the world that no one is out of Paradox’s reach.

Shrouded in mystery, each member of Paradox dons a mask and takes on the organization's name. They are everywhere. They are nowhere. And if they want something, they are inevitable.

Update history

View the full update history: Paradox/Update history

Update

Changes

June 30, 2026

Kinetic Carbine T2 now also increases move speed spirit scaling (0.06).
Kinetic Carbine T3 changed from affecting Max Damage Scaling to affecting both Min and Max Damage Scaling.
Paradoxical Swap cooldown increased from 95s to 110s. (Global ult change)
Paradoxical Swap T2 reduced from -35s Cooldown to -30s. (Global ult change)

May 22, 2026

Time Wall T1 duration increased from +2.5s to +3.5s.
Time Wall T3 increased from +1 Charge to +2.
Time Wall T3 Charge Delay reduced from 4s to 2s.
Kinetic Carbine T3 increased from +50% Max Damage Scaling to +55%.
Paradoxical Swap damage increased from 125 to 150.

April 30, 2026

Kinetic Carbine cooldown reduced from 30s to 28s.
Time Wall T2 weapon damage increased from +30% to +35%.
Kinetic Carbine now provides +20% Air Dash Distance when charged.

Street Brawl:

Pulse Grenade range reduced by 15%.

Gallery

Paradox portrait
Paradox icon
Paradox in-game render
Paradox select background
Paradox reference sheet
Paradox name typography
Paradox weapon - Trade Secret
Paradox 2024 Winter skin
Paradox concept art
Chrono portrait (Neon Prime)
Gloat portrait for Paradox.
Critical health portrait for Paradox.

Trivia

Paradox was named Chrono in Neon Prime.
Paradox is voiced by Elle Newlands, who also voiced Horizon in Apex Legends. Both characters are Scottish and use technology of spacetime manipulation.
Paradox wears a blue rose in her lapel, which do not exist in nature, and are only possible through genetic modification. In art, blue roses are a symbol for mystery and the unattainable.
"Scheming in the Hideout" is displayed as one's status in the in-game Friends List when playing as Paradox in the Hideout.