Deadlock: Complete Beginners Guide
Deadlock is the newest game by Valve that is currently under early development. The game is a third person shooter that draws inspiration from other games such as Overwatch/Team Fortress 2 and DotA 2. The game is essentially a shooter with elements and mechanics taken from MOBA games such as DotA 2.
Note: I did receive an invite to the game during the playtest when it was initially released however, you weren’t allowed to talk about it publicly. Now, they have recently changed the rules and allowed people to discuss the game and even stream it. It is still however pretty early in development and has some experimental gameplay so expect some mechanics to change throughout the development of the game.
I actually pressed the OK button instead of pressing Escape.
I have compiled a beginners guide to help you in figuring out the objective of the game and how each mechanic works. I will be updating this guide gradually with more information as well as any new updates or changes to the game.
Objective
The standard mode for Deadlock features 12 players fighting out in a 6v6 sort-of hero shooter featuring 4 lanes. Players have to essentially take down the enemy Patron in order to win the game.
The patron is guarded by multiple objectives that you need to take out before being able to confront the patron. Each lane has a Guardian, Walker and 2 Elder Guardians that you need to destroy to reach the enemy stronghold. Here is a breakdown of all the lane objectives:
Guardian: A knight that will be defending the lane with its laser as well as a melee attack.
Walker: A giant sort-of robot that has a variety of attacks such as AOE missiles and stomps that can deal damage over time or can knock you up into the air.
Elder Guardians: 2 guardians that are much tougher than the normal guardian and will be defending the entrance of the stronghold.
Shrines: 2 shrines in your stronghold that are protecting the Patron.
Patron: The main objective of the game that you need to take out, initially it will be defending the stronghold and will fly around the stronghold but, once weakened it will be stationary.
To take out the patron, you need to essentially push a lane and reach the enemy stronghold that has 2 shrines, once you take out both shrines then you can damage the patron which will weaken it.
Once it is weakened, it will be inside its small chamber in the stronghold and unable to move; all you need to do is just destroy it in order to win the game.
Heroes
In the initial stage of the game, Deadlock has a roster of 21 heroes to choose from. However, you need to assemble your roster by choosing a minimum of 3 heroes from which you will be assigned a hero when the match is found.
To make it easier for you to play your favorite heroes, there is a priority feature so you can mark the heroes that you really want to play as priority or high priority heroes.
Each hero has 4 abilities; 1 of which is their ultimate. Unlike most MOBAs which have ability levels, there are ability upgrades that you can unlock with Ability Points (AP) that you receive as you acquire souls.
It costs 1,2 and 5 AP for each ability upgrade, however you can upgrade any ability in no particular order as long as you have the AP for it. So you can use all the APs on upgrading your ultimate if you want or spread your AP upgrades on each ability depending on your playstyle.
Laning
There are 4 lanes in the game represented by their own color which are Yellow, Orange, Blue and Purple. Each lane has a zipline that goes from your base to the other one, however you can only use the zipline as far as where you have lane control.
In the start of the game, you will automatically start the game zip lining to a lane; the lanes are divided into 2 lanes of duos and 2 solo lanes with people in parties getting preference over the duo lanes. Lane partners receive the full soul value when they are near each other in the first 10 minutes of the game, this is probably to avoid conflict the teammates on who gets the last hit on the enemy minions. Lane partners do not have to be the same ally that you started the game with, you can swap lanes if needed and it only counts the 2 players that are near the minion who dropped their soul.
You can also use a zipline boost every 340 seconds however it is preferable to not use it at the start of the game since the creeps only spawn once you get to the lane without it anyways.
After the laning stage you can also go ahead and farm the jungle creeps or search for the urns in order to further improve your hero statistics, here are the spawn timings for most of the camps:
2:00 - Small creep camps spawn, they respawn 4 minutes after all the enemies in the camp are defeated.
3:00 - Gold urns spawn which respawn 3 minutes after broken. These urn have a chance to give you a permanent buff like, 1.5% Fire Rate, 4% Ammo Capacity, 0.75% Cooldown Reduction, 3% Weapon Damage, +15 Health and +2 Spirit.
7:00 - Medium jungle camps spawn, they respawn 6 minutes after they are defeated.
7:00 - Hard jungle camps spawn, they respawn 8 minutes after they are defeated.
10:00 - Runes/Temp buffs spawn which respawn @ every 5 minute marker afterwards, so if picked up @ 14:55, a new one will spawn at 15:00 and you can have multiple at once. You can also see if the rune is still there via the mini map icon.
10:00 - Mid-Boss spawns, gives a 3 minute Rejuvenator buff that reduces respawn time for your next death (if you are already dead when your team gets the Rejuvenator, your current respawn time will be reduced), grants your lane creeps extra health and fire rate for your team. The Mid boss respawns 7 minutes after being defeated.
10:00 - Soul Urns begins descending. The Soul Urn will begin descending @ every 5 minute marker afterwards and rotates to each side of the map, it takes 30 seconds to descend (so you can only pick it up @ 10:30, 15:30, 20:30 etc). You need to deliver it to the designated location on the map for the reward however you can not fire your weapon while holding the urn.
15:00 - Gold urn buffs are increased and can now grant 2% Fire Rate, 6% Ammo Capacity, 1% Cooldown Reduction, 4% Weapon Damage, +20 Health and +3 Spirit.
Earning Souls
Souls are the main currency that is used to receive upgrades/level up as well as purchase items in the shop. Most of the souls you acquire are secured souls; earned by killing the lane minions or heroes however, there are souls that can be found in the breakable boxes on the map as well as from the neutral/jungle camps. These souls are unsecured souls (represented with the unsecured counter next to the souls amount), the unsecured souls will slowly transition into secured souls but if you die then any unsecured souls would be dropped and can be picked up by enemy heroes. Unsecured souls are used up first so it is advisable to spend those souls to avoid losing out on those extra souls.
The minions in the lane drop soul orbs when they die which you need to shoot in order to earn souls. During the laning stage, you earn half of their souls if you last hit the minion and the other half by shooting the orb that flies out of their corpse; killing a minion with a melee attack grants you the full amount. You still get the souls from the orb if it is not denied.
After the laning stage (After minute 10), last hitting would not provide you with with souls; only the orbs will provide souls so let them expire or shoot them if there are enemy heroes nearby.
You can also deny the enemies out of their souls by shooting the orange orbs that fly out of your friendly minions which will grant you the souls instead of the enemies.
Shop
You can find the shop in the lanes indicated by the blue shop icons.
You can upgrade your hero stats and buy additional spells or effects by purchasing them at The Curiosity Shop. The shop is available at your base and next to the lane guardian but that shop closes if your guardian is destroyed.
The game uses souls as a form of currency which can be used at the shop. The initial items cost 500 souls but the better items cost more souls per tier. Some items also have a pre-requisite that is needed so they require additional souls to unlock.
Tier 1: 500 souls
Tier 2: 1,250 souls
Tier 3: 3,000+ souls
Tier 4: 6,300+ souls
The items either provide a passive effect along with improving your character statistics or they may provide you with an active spell that you can bind to a slot (Z,X,C,V by default) to use whenever you want.
You can hold 4 items from each category (Weapon, Vitality & Spirit), each category is mostly revolved around a certain element:
Weapon: Your bullet damage and upgrades related to shooting in general.
Vitality: Health and resistance to Bullet/Spirit damage
Spirit: Increasing spirit power; allowing you to deal more damage with your abilities.
There are 4 flex slots that are unlocked as the game progress allowing you to choose an additional 4 items from any category. The flex slots are unlocked via the following achievements:
Flex Slot 1: Defeat an enemy Walker.
Flex Slot 2: Destroy all four enemy Walkers.
Flex Slot 3: Defeat an Elder Guardian.
Flex Slot 4: Destroy an enemy Shrine.
I would be adding more information about the game and constantly update this guide so stay tuned!
